[266] in peace2
Good news on Bio-piracy front!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Sun May 14 22:14:17 2000
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Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 22:14:09 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
Victory claimed on neem patent issue
India Abroad News Service
Thursday, May 11, 2000
New Delhi, May 11 - An Indian organisation campaigning against biopiracy
has claimed a major victory with the European Patent Office (EPO) revoking
a patent it granted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the
multinational firm W.R. Grace for a fungicide derived from Neem tree
seeds.
The decision came after a two-day hearing in Munich and capped a dogged
six-year campaign by the New Delhi-based Research Foundation, headed by
scientist Vandana Shiva, and other activists against biopiracy.
"It's a very, very significant decision. It's the first absolute striking
down of a patent on biopiracy grounds in the heart of Europe," Shiva told
IANS here.
She said she had been told by officials of the EPO in advance of the
ruling that the Office would have to "revisit" its entire system of
examining and awarding patents if the activists won their case against the
Neem patent.
"Patent examiners at present have no idea what they are signing. For
instance, they have no idea what is the Neem tree," Shiva said. "This will
create the kind of stringency we have been calling for in examining and
awarding patents."
An EPO panel judged that there was no inventive steps involved behind the
patent jointly registered in the name of the USDA and W.R. Grace, a
chemical manufacturer, after hearing expert testimony on the prior use of
the Neem as a fungicide in India.
The Research Foundation and its partners in the Neem patent challenge had
been confident of their case since it was a clear case of piracy of Indian
indigenous knowledge, according to Shiva.
"How could the United States or W.R. Grace say they invented something
which has been in public use for centuries and on which modern scientific
research has been carried out in the country for decades?" she said.
Shiva said the European victory was not the end of the story. The
activists would take their challenge now to the United States where they
face a tougher task. Unlike Europe, there is no room for public interest
intervention on patents in the U.S.
"We are not going to sit quietly. We plan to start an infringement
conflict in the United States," Shiva said. Activists would encourage
cooperatives to start marketing Neem tree products in the U.S. If
W.R. Grace or the USDA does not challenge the marketing, the patent risks
becoming null and void, she said.
