Subject: India: Biodiversity: Patents
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#10. RTw 03/10 2034 FEATURE-India girds to defend its biodiversity

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    By Narayanan Madhavan
     NEW DELHI, March 11 (Reuters) - Many Indians were outraged last year
when they heard that a U.S. firm had sought a patent for a familiar home
remedy -- the healing properties of turmeric.
     A similar furore has erupted over news that another U.S. firm,
RiceTec Inc, had named new lines of rice it patented "Basmati," the
long-grained, aromatic variety widely recognised as unique to India and
Pakistan.
     Indian officials, who won the turmeric patent dispute and are now
waging a legal war over basmati rice, recognise the need for a long-term
strategy to preserve the nation's vast genetic wealth and traditional
knowledge.
     The government is developing a biodiversity law expected to help
India ward off patenting predators and claim a slice of a biological
business that some estimate is worth $200 billion a year.
     "Strength respects strength," Raghunath Mashelkar, director-general
of the government's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR),
told Reuters.
     "How long can we fight these cases one by one?," he said. "There is a
need for policy and proper intellectual property regulations."
     PRECIOUS SPECIES
     Seventeen countries contain more than two-thirds of the planet's
biological wealth and diversity, and of those, India is ranked thirteen,
the environmental group Conservation International said in a report last
year.
     Experts say increased demand for herbal products poses a threat to
diversity and genetic stock of medicinal plants.
     Vasant Gowariker, vice-chancellor of the University of Pune, said
India had 5,000 flowering plants, 38 mammals, 69 birds, 156 reptiles and
110 amphibians unique to the region, plus thousands of other rare species.
     Gowariker criticised the global patent regime under the World Trade
Organisation (WTO). "Personally I feel it is extremely unjust because the
developing countries are not organised the way Americans are," he said.
     For a patent to be granted, a firm must show that it has something
new, the novelty is not obvious and it is useful. In the turmeric case,
Indian officials laboured to show that there was nothing new in the
spice's wound-healing qualities.
     But in the basmati rice case, the dispute is over the naming of new
lines as "Basmati," Mashelkar said.
     "Suppose they had called it Mississippi rice, we would not have
objected,"  he said.
     POLICING PROFITS
     The basmati wrangle has brought home the need for India to have a law
to defend its products like Darjeeling tea and Alphonso mangoes, he said.
     RiceTec says basmati is a generic term. The U.S. government said in
its RiceTec patent that "in some countries the term basmati rice can be
applied to only the rice grown in India and Pakistan."
     The proposed Indian law would set up a National Biodiversity Board
with the country's prime minister at its head to supervise and regulate
the use of biological resources.
     A proposed community biodiversity register would record knowledge
derived from folk traditions and ancient practices that date back
thousands of years.
     "There are a lot of ethno-botanical plants and only 1-to-3 percent
has been harnessed so far," an Indian official said.
     Experts say traditional knowledge has been used for decades by
multinational firms without India gaining in return.
     "The kind of plundering that has been going right from the imperial
days cannot be quantified," said researcher Manoj Bhatnagar, who has been
studying traditional medicinal plants.
     Bhatnagar said Himalayan yew, a plant found in northern India, is
said to have cancer-curing properties. Over the years, it has been
depleted. Yew is not easily replenished as it takes 150 years for the
plant to reach adulthood, he said.
     STRENGTHENING TRADITIONS
     The Indian government says it is aware of the importance of
monitoring patents. "We are looking at patent applications being filed
every week," one official said.
     WTO rules say that anything that goes against the social order or
morality of a nation cannot be patented.
     "As a country, we will have to make our own rules," he said.
     While multinational firms are often criticised for depleting natural
wealth, traditional systems lack the expertise to use and preserve
resources effectively, experts say.
     "Surveys show that 70 percent of the plant collections (in India's
traditional medicine) involve destructive harvesting because of the use of
parts like roots, bark, wood and stem," said a paper prepared for an
international conference on medicinal plants in the southern city of
Bangalore last month.
     Ashish Kothari, environmental expert at the Indian Institute of
Public Administration, told the conference that much of the traditional
knowledge was being lost due to "official neglect and hanging cultural
practices."
     "We need people who can understand the complexities and put them
together,"  an official said. REUTERS
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