Bio-piracy & India's Concerns

There is no hard definition of Bio-piracy. Bio-piracy can be defined as sort of piracy in which the corporations from the one part of the world (mostly developed world) claim ownership of or take advantage of, the genetic resources and traditional knowledge and technologies of other part of world (mostly developing world) by means of patents etc.

Bio-piracy is a big concern for India, emerging as a bigger concern than the intellectual property piracy these days.

The issue of Bio-piracy came in the light for the first time in India in 1990s when the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a pharmaceutical research firm received a patent on a technique to extract an anti-fungal agent from the Neem Tree. This patent triggered a widespread public outcry in India and the government of India took legal action, which resulted in the invalidation of this patent in 2005.

Recently the US tried to get the patent of our basmati rice with a different name. There are many other products of Neem and Haldi, of immense value, facing similar threats. Recently China also tried to patent a medicinal process using Pudina.

The pharmaceutical company, which was involved in the Neem case had argued that as traditional Indian knowledge of the properties of the Neem tree had never been published in an academic journal, such knowledge did not amount to "prior art".

People bio-diversity register:

It's a well known fact that Indian culture is not written, it is in an oral form that is conveyed from one generation to another. But modern society is based on written form. Therefore, "to avoid various violations, we have started writing down that is called people bio-diversity register. States like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have already started it" (from statement of Jairam Ramesh)