NISCAIR is developing a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), in collaboration with the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy, Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in order to protect India's traditional knowledge from biopiracy.

The TKDL is digitizing, in phases, information available in the public domain on ayurveda, unani, siddha, naturopathy and folklore.

The first phase will cover ayurveda. An interdisciplinary team comprising ayurveda experts, computer programmers, scientists, patent examiners and technicians has been working on the project since October 2001.

The TKDL has been patterned on the International Patent Classifications and has been ratified by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification, an innovative structured classification system for the purpose of systematic arrangement, dissemination and retrieval, has been evolved by Dr. V.K. Gupta, Director of NISCOM, now TKDL Chairman, for about 5 000 subgroups against one group in international patent application, i.e. AK61K35/78 related to medicinal plants.

The TKDL is presently available in different foreign languages (e.g. English, French, German, Spanish), as well as Indian languages, and is making it accessible to patent examiners globally. Efforts are being pushed to make it mandatory for patent examiners to refer to TKDL before granting patents on non-original inventions.

TKDL has provided India a global leadership position in the area of Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property Right. It is for this reason that several countries have sought India’s support in establishing similar systems for themselves. Some of the countries that have shown keen interest are: Republic of South Korea, Thailand, South Africa, Mangolia, Cambodia, Nigeria, African Regional Industrial Property Office, SAARC member states, etc.

TKDL initiative has also been fully recognized by international organizations such as WIPO, WHO, UNESCO, etc. for documentation of traditional medicine systems and Intangible Cultural Heritage. International and national media have done extensive coverage on TKDL and the project has been covered by reputed international magazines such as Time, Nature, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC and several other electronic channels and the print media. TKDL also has immense potential for creating new Intellectual Property through collaborative research and providing affordable medicines for all, in particular for developing countries.