Patent-news on Biopatents and the Third World

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

>From Patent-news, regarding India.  jamie

-----------
Subject: PATNEWS: US biopatents - how pissed off is the Third world??
     Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 11:12:13 -0400
    From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
      To: patent-news@world.std.com

!19980407  Biopatents - how pissed off is the Third World??

    I have reported in the past on complaints from foreign countries
about
the patenting of their native plants and their uses.  Three recent
events
have illustrated to me the intense outrage that has been generated as
the
US Patent Office issues these questionable patents.

    The first two events deal with Basmati rice, an Indian-subcontinent
rice that has been patented by a Texas company.  The first event was a
cable television show I happen to wander into while channel surfing.  On
most cable systems, there is one channel for non-white American cultures
(for lack of a better description), with shows like Korean Hour,
Armenian
Hour, India Telecom Post, etc.  News from the homeland, stories about
local community events, movies, food, etc.  Nice shows to watch, even if
you are not of their culture.

    What surprised me is that recently on some of the Indian shows, the
entire hour-long show has been devoted to the issue of the patenting of
the Basmati rice.  For the genre of these cable shows, that is unusual
and indicative of the outrage.  I have contacted the producers of one of
these shows, and they said they will be doing more shows on this topic.
They want to educate Indians in the US on this issue, to help fight the
issuance of these patents.  For a patent issue to make it onto a cable
TV show - something is amiss.

    The second event was a story in Monday's Wall Street Journal about
this
outrage.  As a measure of this outrage, the story reports that India and
Pakistan (whose feelings are on a par with Israelis and Palestinians)
are
working together to challenge the US patent on Basmati rice.  They are
fighting not only the patent, but also that Ricetec has trademarked the
word "Basmati", selling their Basmati-Texas rice strain in packaging
that says "Kasmati, Indian style Basmati".  Ricetec's response to these
complaints is "If you don't protect what you have, you don't have the
right to keep it".  Their response is that the USPTO shouldn't have
granted Ricetec those rights in the first place if they knew more about
the
prior art and use of Basmati. The British government, which takes
basmati
rice to mean Indian rice, has refused entry to Ricetec's Kasmati on the
grounds that the company is passing it off as something that it isn't.
The Indians and Pakistanis are also arguing that you can't grow anything
labelled "basmati" in the United States, because the climate, soil and
water are different from the region in the Himalayas were both countries
grow the rice.

    The general fear in India was expressed by one of their rice
exporters.
"Two hundred years ago, the British came for trading and then ruled
us.....
Everyone's afraid the same thing is happening now: America is using our
products to overtake us commercially".

    The third event is a letter to Congress from a Central and South
American
group protesting the awarding of a US patent to one of their native
plants.
The organization sent me a copy of the letter to send out wherever
possible.
Same type of complaints as the Indians and Pakistani's.  And probably
the
same type of complaint that will eventually come out of China, when
China
starts paying attention to the US patenting of acupuncture techniques.

    Yet more examples of the dysfunctionality of the US patent
examination
system, which refuses to concede that it just doesn't give that much of
a
damn about non-patent prior art, not only in the electronics field
(where
I opinion all the time), but pretty much all technology areas.  As these
cases point out, the USPTO isn't qualified to determine the novelty and
nonobviousness of non-native plants, and should self-impose a moratorium
until it cleans up its act (along with its software examining as well
:-).
These patents are embarassing to the United States - American companies
don't need such cheap tricks to win market share.

Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service



    Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin

              OPEN LETTER TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES



Dear Sirs:

    As you may already be aware, the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) - a
body of the the U.S. government - has decided to break relations with
our
organization. In doing so, they have denied any type of colaboration
with
more than one and a half million indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin,
while we are making an effort to maintain our cultures, as well as,
trying
to avoid the destruction of the largest rainforest on the planet.

    The reasoning of the president of the IAF is based the resolution
adopted
by the Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon
Basin
(COICA), that, in its Fifth Congress realized in May of the past year,
decided to declare a citizen of the United States, Loren Miller, an
"enemy
of indigenous people". At this time COICA prohibited his entrance into
any
indigenous territory.  Mr. Miller has patented in the United States, a
variety of Ayahuasca or Yage (Banisteriopsis caapi), which is a plant of
hallucinogenic properties that is considered sacred for the majority of
the
400 indigenous groups in the nine countries which constitute COICA.

    We know well the campaign to discredit our organization orchestrated
by
Miller. For him, it was not enough to patent our sacred plant taken from
the garden of an indigenous family in Ecuador, and he is now proposing
to
install a laboratory to process the plant in the same country.  COICA is
an
organization with positive earned prestige at the international level,
not
only for the defense of indigenous rights, but also for the proposals
and
work to amelliorate the life conditions of our peoples.

    The drastic resolution adopted by IAF is for us one more
confirmation that
this organization is serving the economic interests of only one
individual
against the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples and
the
opinion of worldwide respected organizations such as the WWF, the IUCN
and
the Amazon Coalition.  These are some of the hundreds of organizations,
American and international personalities that have written to the IAF to
express their solidarity with COICA.

    The pressure exercised by the IAF to retract our resolution adopted
unanimously by ninety delegates representing the 400 indigenous groups
represented in our Congress, it is inadmissable. As we have said, the
respect of our beliefs and dignity as peoples are worth more than any
amount of help that can be given or taken away.

    COICA, once again ratifies all the points of the resolution adopted
in
the Fifth Congress about the patenting of ayahuasca, and insists in
stressing
that under no circumstances and despite any pressure of national and
international organizations, COICA will not renounce its legitimate
right
to defend and preserve the knowledge, practices, innovations and natural
resources of the peoples whom we represent. This right has been
explicitly
recognized in the Treaty of Biological Diversity that was ratified by
more
than 170 countries.

    In addition to this, COICA declares that in the defense of its
rights,
it will use all legal means available. The capricious interpretation of
COICA's resolution that Mr. Miller and other interested sectors have
made,
stating that our organization threatens "the life and integrity of a
United
States citizen" lacks any foundation and is only a strategy to divert
the
attention of the fundamental problem, which is the immoral and illegal
patenting of our sacred plant. This is an offense which we cannot
tolerate.

    We believe that you the Congressmen/women, should know the
fundamental
reason which allows your fellow citizens to patent our plants and
appropriate our knowledge. There is a lack of ratification by the U.S.
Congress of the Treaty of Biological Diversity, and a lack of approval
for
accurate laws that impede this known worldwide practice of "biopiracy".

    For these reasons, COICA will immediately initiate the legal process
in
the United States to achieve the absolute nullity of the patent obtained
by
Mr. Miller. In this process we are confident that there will be wide
international solidarity for COICA's position, especially with the
active
support of conservation, humanitarian and politcal organizations of the
United States. The personalities, politicians and public opinion of the
U.S., have on several occasions demonstrated their solidarity with the
cause of Amazonian indigenous peoples due to our contribution to the
environmental stability of the planet.

Sincerely,


Antonio Jacanimijoy
General Coordinator of COICA