In late 2006 the DKCRC Indigenous Knowledge Protocol was subject to a revision exercise. This revision raises a number of critical issues that go to the heart of the nature of collaborative research and ethical practice. The revision process for the Protocol was a collaborative one, in which several different kinds of discourse occurred. These discourses necessitated preliminary preparation, in order to facilitate shared understandings among workshop participants of specialised language & concepts pertaining to intellectual property, and to international legal discourse. This paper will explore some of the challenges and issues in the process of developing these shared understandings.