The Hindu : Patenting only protection against bio-piracy, say experts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 28, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mangalore

Patenting only protection against bio-piracy, say experts

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, MARCH 27. Experts participating in a national-level seminar on intellectual property rights (IPR) on Saturday stressed the need to document and patent indigenous knowledge as it was susceptible to bio-piracy.

The seminar in its second day saw papers on "Patenting farm products" by the Director of the Centre for Rural Studies, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Krishna Kothai, and "Bio-piracy patenting" by the bio-scientist, N.A. Madhyastha. The seminar was organised by SDM College of Business Management in collaboration with the Ministry for Human Resources Development, New Delhi.

In his presentation, Dr. Madhyastha noted that India was a treasure trove of traditional wisdom and indigenous knowledge. But owing to "indifference" and "ignorance," many knowledge systems had disappeared.

He said the indifference towards patenting traditional knowledge had left open the field to discerning entrepreneurs from other countries. After the Indian economy had been liberalised, at least 20 medicinal plants and agricultural products of the country had been patented by developed countries, which was a glaring instance of bio-piracy, he said.

Dr. Kothai, in his paper, said the country should take steps to protect its plant diversity.

Thankfully, Parliament in 2001 passed the Plant Varieties and Farmers' Right Act, which had given some teeth to the country's biodiversity protection machinery, he said. According to statistics, 66 per cent of the seeds in India were being generated for reuse by farmers themselves, which was a good thing to happen as Indian farmers would otherwise be forced to buy seeds from MNCs at exorbitant rates.

Giridhar Prabhu, former President of the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who moderated one of the sessions, stated that the Government should act as a monitoring agency against patenting of Indian agro products as most manufacturers were either not equipped financially to protect the produce from being patented by other countries or companies or did not have access to information on how to patent the product.

U.N. Lakshman, former postdoctoral research fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi, delivered the valedictory address.

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