If a stranger entered your community, and started asking questions about its people, its resources, and its history, what would you do?

In today's global marketplace, no stone goes unturned. Where there is commercial value, there are profits to be made. However, as entrepreneurs scour the world in search of new commodities, a voice of dissent is growing and striving to be heard. That voice belongs to the world's indigenous peoples, and it is voice that has been ignored long enough.

In Beyond Intellectual Property, authors Darrell A. Posey and Graham Dutfield listen and respond to this voice. They offer sound and reasonable advice on how indigenous peoples and local communities worldwide should approach and deal with the myriad of issues surrounding intellectual property and traditional resource rights.

For indigenous peoples' groups, activists and policymakers in intellectual property, and all those concerned with the preservation of our planet's biological and cultural diversity, Beyond Intellectual Property provides an invaluable and eye-opening look into one of the most provocative and explosive issues of this century and likely the next: the patenting of life.