The World Intellectual Property Organisation, a specialised UN agency, along with Indian government will organise a three-day meet on traditional knowledge, including ayurvedic medicine and unani, next month.

Geneva-headquartered WIPO is responsible for promoting and protecting intellectual property rights worldwide.

The meeting, to be held here, would help in creating more awareness about intellectual property rights and patents, that are crucial for protecting traditional knowledge.

"We (WIPO) will be holding a major meeting on traditional knowledge in March in India," WIPO Director General Francis Gurry told PTI.

"India has been a leader there in terms of technology for the preservation and monetisation of traditional knowledge...

notably ayurvedic medicine, unani and other medical systems," he said.

Gurry, who would be attending the meet, stressed that he is very keen to engage India, which has a great tradition of science and culture.

According to a WIPO official, the event would focus on utilisation of Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) as a model for the protection of traditional knowledge.

"Tentatively, the event would be from March 22 to 24. It would be organised by WIPO and CSIR (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research)," the official said.

TKDL is a project between CSIR, Ministry of Science and Technology and Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

As per its website, the project involves documentation of the traditional knowledge available in public domain related to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga. The content is gathered in digitised format in English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.