Examine the challenges in protecting traditional medicine knowledge and genetic resources through IPR mechanisms in a multilateral regional context.

Traditional medicine knowledge is community-held, orally transmitted and shared across borders — a poor fit for IPR systems built around individual, novel inventions. The Third BIMSTEC Conference on Traditional Medicine Knowledge, Genetic Resources and IPR, held at Goa in September 2026 under the Ministry of Ayush, ended with the "Goa Conclusions" identifying four cooperation areas [1] — a useful lens on why regional protection remains difficult.

Conceptual and legal mismatch

• Traditional knowledge fails the novelty and individual-inventor tests; protection is therefore largely defensive, not proprietary.
• India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) works only as prior art: over 375 patent applications worldwide have been revoked, rejected, amended or withdrawn using it [2] — it blocks misappropriation but yields no royalty.

Absence of enforceable benefit-sharing

• The WIPO Treaty on IP, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (2024) creates a disclosure-of-origin duty in patent applications, but enters into force only three months after 15 ratifications [3].
• Without disclosure, prior informed consent and access-and-benefit-sharing claims by holder communities are practically unenforceable.

Regional fragmentation

• The same medicinal plants and uses recur across India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand; a firm can simply file where no database or disclosure rule exists. Of BIMSTEC's seven members, TKDL access agreements exist with distant offices like Brazil's INPI [2], not neighbours.

Weak institutional delivery

• BIMSTEC works by consensus and soft outcomes; its FTA, framed in 2004, was still being chased in 2024 [4]. The Goa Conclusions bind nobody.

Evidence and standards deficit

• WHO's Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 places building evidence and regulation first [5]; IPR secures ownership, not safety or efficacy.

Protection thus demands more than conferences. Extending TKDL access to BIMSTEC patent offices, joint ratification of the WIPO treaty, and harmonised herbal standards would convert declaratory cooperation into enforceable rights — aligning regional diplomacy with equitable benefit-sharing and community dignity.