"We want to preserve and conserve traditional knowledge and also prevent grant of wrong patents for non-original inventions at the world level", G Veluchamy, CRIS director said, listing efforts to preserve traditional knowledge of Siddha, one of India's ancient system of medicine.
He said CRIS planned to digitise 10,000 formulae of Siddha compositions for treating various ailments and host them on a digital library, being created by the department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy.
The department's task force had evolved a methodology to create a library on ayurveda books, involving 30,000 compositions, Veluchamy said, participating at the valedictory of 'Ayush 2005'- an exposition on traditional medicines in Madurai.
The exercise to digitise data on Siddha would soon be completed. A seven volume database on medicinal plants, with bibliographical references, had been published and efforts were on to translate them into Tamil, he said.