Indigenous IP Support Services
Indigenous IP Support Services provide educational and template agreements that address the legal, non-legal, and ethical frameworks of practice affecting the protection of Indigenous intellectual and cultural property.
Our aim is to demystify copyright and to provide clear and direct information about how this area of law affects access, control, and governance of cultural heritage, biocultural resources, and Indigenous data. Our support services highlight new tools and strategies that communities could utilize as well as frameworks for better collaboration between communities, institutions, and researchers. These include the Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels and Notices, protocols, ethical guidelines, agreements, and memoranda of understanding.
Current Projects
Traditional Knowledge Licenses
Traditional Knowledge Licenses differ from other licenses available in that they create the possibility for collective ownership and authority. This is one of the key features that makes them different from current Creative Commons licenses. They also have capacity to incorporate cultural protocols and expectations around future use of traditional knowledge.
While the Traditional Knowledge Labels are an innovation in the field of intellectual property law, we anticipate that the Traditional Knowledge Licenses will extend this work to create a legally binding strategy for communities to maintain control and authority over important traditional knowledge that is shared in research and commercial contexts.
Learn MoreData Sovereignty Agreements
This project focuses on the development of a model data sovereignty agreement for tribal users of Traditional Knowledge Labels and Biocultural Labels within the Local Contexts Hub.
This will involve drafting an agreement that will allow outline key IDSov principles around the use of data within the Local Contexts Hub, the authorized uses of the Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Label icons used by Iwi / Community, and making clear the rights that each Iwi / Community retains over the unique text that accompanies their Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels.
