Who owns indigenous knowledge?

Many countries and organisations now promote the idea that a community collectively owns the intellectual property inherent in their indigenous knowledge and technologies. Some indigenous knowledge is however considered to be in the ‘public domain’ which means that it is free for anyone to use. The World Intellectual Property Organisation is currently working on international IP regimes to manage the IP rights in what they call ‘traditional cultural expressions’. In 1999, the OAU developed African Model Legislation that provides African countries with a model for national laws protecting the rights of a community to their biological resources, traditional knowledge and technologies over rights based on individual or corporate monopoly interests.