Publication of the week: Dr Patricia Covarrubia

16 February 2017

Patricia Covarrubia, “Colombia: Intellectual property and aboriginal handicraft”, in Sarah Sargent and Jo Samanta (eds), Indigenous Rights: Changes and Challenges for the 21st Century (Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press, 2016). ISBN: 9781908684165.

Indigenous peoples regard their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge (TK) and traditional cultural expressions as a collective intellectual heritage. This legacy is part of their cultural identity, and it is also their holistic perception, i.e. their cosmovisión,  which has been passed from generation to generation. It is indicated that this set of cultural identity should be protected for its own value because of its importance in the survival of indigenous peoples.  However, this requires the intervention of states and communities working together for its preservation and sustainability.  Therefore, at the international law level there is the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that recognises the need to promote and protect indigenous culture – a Declaration that Colombia has endorsed.

More information about the book on the University of Buckingham Press website.

Dr Patricia Covarrubia is Senior Lecturer in Law at The University of Buckingham and manager / blogger in IP Tango (Intellectual Property weblog – Latin America). Dr Covarrubia is also an IP consultant for the Latin American IPR SME Helpdesk, a project co-founded by the EU. Her research interests include geographical indications and indications of origin, compulsory licences in the pharmaceutical industry, domain names, and the protection of traditional knowledge. She is the author of Chemical Sense Marks: Frequent concerns when applying for trade mark registration at the OHIM (Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing, 2011).