Abstract: The economic value of Naxi traditional knowledge is increasingly obvious. Traditional knowledge is a kind of “knowledge wealth” and manifests as intangible cultural heritage. This is just a simple form of the economic value of traditional knowledge. In order to implement the economic value of traditional knowledge, we need to solve the problem of “obtaining property rights” of it. The author believes that the current intellectual property laws are still the best ways to protect traditional knowledge as intellectual property rights. This paper empirically studies the development of traditional knowledge in copyright, patent and brand economy and finds out that it is the basic way for traditional knowledge to realize its economic value. And that is also the deep form of the economic value of traditional knowledge. This paper points out the existing problems in implementing the economic value of traditional knowledge and puts forward some countermeasures.

Key Words: intellectual property right; economic value; traditional knowledge; the Naxi ethnic group

Since the 21st century, the economic value of traditional knowledge has been further enhanced. Traditional knowledge has typical asset characteristics. Traditional knowledge which belongs to "intellectual wealth", is undoubtedly a kind of knowledge products. From an economic point, knowledge products are resources while it can be regarded as a property in law. Therefore, the ownership of intellectual property products must be clear.

To achieve the economic value of traditional knowledge, it is necessary to solve the problem on"property rights" of traditional knowledge, which is essentially the issue of intellectual property protection. Traditional knowledge cannot maximize its economic value unless it has "property rights" . The current intellectual property law remains the most effective law for the protection of intellectual property rights in traditional knowledge.

The Naxi Group is one of the minorities who only live in Yunnan. During the long process of production and life, the Naxi people have created the traditional knowledge with distinctive group, ethnical and regional characteristics. Most of the traditional knowledge about Naxi have been included in the category of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Act.

There are also some problems when the Naxi want to achieve the economic value of their traditional knowledge, such as the lack of strategic planning and intellectual property, the scatter of protection power, and so on.

To solve these problems, the local government must make a general plan to protect intellectual property rights of the Naxi’s traditional knowledge. The traditional knowledge of Naxinationality needs to be developed and utilized in an orderly way under the guidance of the government, and the relevant laws and regulations should be used to regulate related behaviors. It is necessary to innovate the work mechanism in traditional knowledge enrichment area, to set up a special platform, to integrate resources from different departments , to provide the "one-stop" service which contains exploitation, collation, inheritance, development and utilizationof traditional knowledge, protection of intellectual property rights and many other aspects.