Traditional knowledge is what’s holding the United States’ pharmaceutical industry up

[Gloria, 3/21/2023, Drake University Law School, “PIRACY BY PATENTS: HOW UNITED STATES PATENT LAW ENABLES BIOPIRACY”, https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2023/03/Soto-Ready-for-Publish.pdf , 6/27/24, LHG] 

The biopharmaceutical companies earn billions in annual profits from their protected invention while the people who provided the traditional knowledge on which that research is based, receive no compensation.9 The knowledge provided by indigenous people and local communities are considered to be part of the public domain because it was developed over generations.10 This means inventors can use the traditional knowledge without any legal requirement to provide attribution or benefits to the source communities.11 

As the demand for these resources has increased, other countries have taken measures to protect the traditional knowledge and resources of their indigenous groups and local communities.12 This has led to a protectionist trend which effectively protects indigenous groups from exploitation, but slows the innovation of new drugs by foreign companies.13 American biopharmaceutical companies bene- fit from using traditional knowledge, and society benefits from access to new drugs.14 To continue this access, however, it is necessary to enact laws that will protect the rights of indigenous communities in other nations and ensure they receive some of the profits while still allowing foreign companies to bioprospect in those biodiversity-rich areas. The United States needs to alter its patent laws to require the disclosure of use of traditional knowledge in patent applications and enact legislation which recognizes indigenous communities’ traditional knowledge as prior art to ensure continued collaboration with biodiversity-rich nations and to facilitate the development of new drugs.