Patentes e conhecimentos tradicionais: uma análise sobre pedidos de patentes relacionados ao babaçu

Abstract

Babassu is one of the main products of vegetal extraction in Brazil, which traditionally takes place in a family production system where predominates female labor. Excepting what is, in fact, commercialized, several by-products, which are traditional uses, are consumed domestically. The objective of this research is to verify if there is an attempt to appropriate this knowledge by companies, laboratories and research institutions. As a research question, it is proposed to investigate to what extent the protection of intellectual property is probably being used as a means to attempt to appropriate traditional knowledge associated with this species. Methodologically, patent applications related to babassu, published at the WIPO database (patentscope), were collected and analyzed, as well as compared with the reports of traditional use in order to verify the attempted appropriation by other entities outside the traditional knowledge owners. The statistical analysis evidences that approximately 30% of the requests contain elements of traditional use and a third of these had a patent granted. The analyzes show that international actors stood out in this process. This scenario seems to indicate the use of intellectual property for the purpose of possible appropriation of traditional knowledge