A joint submission by the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) and the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (ALCC) in response to IP Australia’s Protection of Indigenous Knowledge in the Intellectual Property System Consultation Paper. It was made in recognition of the growing awareness of the importance of Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property (ICIP) in the many sectors to which our members belong, especially the cultural and education sectors. Both organisations acknowledge that they are not experts in relation to ICIP but support IP Australia’s efforts to more effectively recognise and protect ICIP in Australia.
In the submission we outline our concerns that copyright and other areas of intellectual property (IP) are not appropriate to protect ICIP. In particular we identify issues related to registration of patents and trade marks, the duration of copyright protection, complications that arise in relation to authorship, originality and material form and aspects of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression that may fall outside of existing copyright and IP law.