Intellectual Property Rights

The notion of indigenous intellectual property rights (IPR) has come up in an attempt to conserve each society’s cultural base— its core beliefs and principles. IPR are claimed as a cultural right, allowing indigenous groups to control who may know and use their collective knowledge and its applications. 

According to the IPR concept, a particular group may determine how its indigenous knowledge and the products of that knowledge are used and distributed, and the level of compensation required.