Second World Ayurveda Congress (Theme: Ayurveda for the Future)—Inaugural Address: Part III

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (1) came to be. As Dr Bhatkar told you, that is why, if you put ‘Traditional Knowledge Digital Library’ into Google, you are now one of 30 million plus hits. That is the magnitude of the transformation that has taken place. What we have done is to take Ayurvedic text, Sanskrit text and converted them into English, codified them and created a traditional knowledge resource classification. This has then been linked to international patent classification. Why is it important to have done so? Because we discovered that, of the 10 000 international patent classification subgroups, only one was for traditional medicine. How can you have only one subgroup out of 10 000 for such a rich system? Now, thanks to our Indian effort, there are 200 subgroups. I am sure, that as other systems come in, that figure will become 2000. I am very happy about the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. In June, the paper went to the cabinet, which approved it in its entirety. They decided that it will be CSIR who decides on access of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to the International Patent Offices. Now what will happen: there will be a connection between the Sanskrit sloka in the Ayurvedic text and the personal computer of the patent examiner in the US patent office. Then, if he does ‘Turmeric’, ‘wound healing’ and ‘powder’, he will not get a blank screen. Instead, he will get all the knowledge in a language he understands, because it has been codified and classified. There would not be any wrong patents given.