traditional cultural expression

Earlier this month, regulations in Taiwan went into effect to give indigenous peoples intellectual property rights over their traditional cultural expression, including religious ceremonies and folk crafts, Focus Taiwan News Channel reports. For example, that Tao people on Orchid Island has applied to protect the "Flying Fish Festival, the launching ceremonies of Tao balangays, or 'big boats,' along with the various symbols and patterns on the boats, such as the fish-eye and human-shaped patterns." 

There are 530,000 indigenous people in Taiwan, making up 2 percent of that country's population.

South Africa has enacted a new intellectual property law to protect traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression, according to a report in IT in Government. The law is seeking to extend traditional IP laws to protect indigenous knowledge, and South Africa will establish registries under which indigenous communities can register creative works and also receive licensing fees. However, Owen Dean, chairman of intellectual property law at the University of Stellenbosch, said IP law cannot protect traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression because "'all IP is based on a policy which says you want to encourage creativity, so you give creators an incentive: exclusive control for a limited period, before the work becomes public domain. Indigenous knowledge is reversed: nothing is identifiably creative, and rights are awarded perpetually,'" IT in Government further reported.

Despite ongoing negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization, no international legal protection has yet been worked out to protect cultural heritage like traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression, Indonesia's Antara News reports. Cultural heritage is left unprotected by intellectual property law.