Web Site Set to Protect IP for Korean Foods
09 November 2012
South Korea’s state-run Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI) has launched a new web site designed to protect the intellectual property rights and manufacturing processes of traditional foods such as kimchi, according to media reports.
The web site, www.tradifood.net, is currently available only in Korean, though an English version is planned. The web site is designed to ensure patents are not issued for traditional Korean food-making techniques.
“As competition intensifies on the global stage to secure various intellectual property rights, companies in many advanced countries muscle into developing countries to occupy their traditional knowledge in order to develop them into lucrative industrial technologies,” KFRI spokesman Lim Seon-kyu told the Korea Times.
Under WIPO regulations, the creation of a database is essential to protect traditional knowledge as a sovereignty right. KFRI says the web site, with more than 3,500 Korean recipes, meets WIPO’s standards.
Observers in Korea note that the web site is also designed to promote Korean food to Koreans and, once it is available in other languages, non-Koreans alike.
