CASE STUDYTHE NEEM PATENT:INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT OVER THE

COMMODIFICATION OF LIFE

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-Mr.Vasant Kothari Digvijay Pandey

Rahul Krishna nigam M-FTECH (1ST SEM)

What is Patent?

An industrially useful invention Which is new and not part of the public

domain Confers upon the patentee monopoly in the

use of the invention for a fixed period Protects the workable idea and the concept of

an industrially useful invention

Why Patent?

• Patents were historically developed to insure that inventors could share in the financial returns and benefits deriving from the use of their inventions.

Patents ensure profits through monopolies

What is Neem?

Neem (Azadirachta indica) is a tree from India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia.Neem (Azadirachta indica) is a tree from India and other parts of South and Southeast AsiaOne of the world’s largest plantations is in Saudi Arabia, where approximately 50,000 trees have been planted on the Plains of Arafat.

Application of NeemNeem has been regarded as a wonder tree, the world over, capable of solving a large number of human and animal diseases. Pharmaceutical companies are making use of this natural product as an composition in quite a few allopathic medicines.

Neem in its raw form, in extracts and as finished product finds various application in animal and human health, in cosmetics etc.

The politics of Neem patent

a patent has been granted to the U.S. Company

W.R. Grace on a compound in the tree (azadirachtin) for the production of a biopesticide.

In 1993, over five hundred thousand South Indian farmers rallied to protest foreign patents on plants such as the neem, and launched a nation-wide resistance movement.

Under free trade agreements such as GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), countries of the developing world will feel strong pressures to implement U.S.-style patent systems

Multi-national corporations can make large profits on their “discoveries,” while depriving the communities which have fostered this knowledge for centuries of the choice of how they would like to use their own knowledge and native species.

A corporation tried to patent a compound of the neem tree, which provides a living for large

populations.

Azadirachtin itself is a

natural product found in the seeds of the

neem ,tree and it is its significant

active component.

Neem PatentsNumerous neem products have received patents. Several of these have been granted to Indian companies for a range of products including a contraceptive (patent granted to the National Institute of Immunology in 1993) and an environmentally safe pesticide (for Godrej Soaps in 1994).

Since the 1980s, many neem related process and products have been patented in Japan, USA and European countries. The first US patent was obtained by Terumo Corporation in 1983 for its therapeutic preparation from neem bark

Since the 1980s, many neem related process and products have been patented in Japan, USA and European countries. The first US patent was obtained by Terumo Corporation in 1983 for its therapeutic preparation from neem bark

But the most controversial patents are those granted to the US company WR Grace & Co for extraction and storage processes. They are:

US patent No 4946681, granted in 1990 for improving the storage stability of neem seed extracts containing azadirachtin (a substance obtained from Azadirachta (neem). (The inventor is named as James F Walter of Ashton, Maryland.

US patent No 5124349, 1994 for patent on an extraction process and storage solvent to the US Company W.R. Grace (presently Certis)

The WR Grace patents provoked a national outcry

Having gathered their patents and clearance from the EPA, four years later, Grace commercialized its product by setting up manufacturing plant in collaboration with P.J. Margo Pvt. Ltd in India and continued to file patents from their own research in USA and other parts of world

Aside from Grace, neem based pesticides were also marketed by another company, AgriDyne Technologies Inc., USA

Grace Patent Controversy

In April 1993, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to the U.S. Congress titled-,

“Biotechnology, Indigenous Peoples, and Intellectual Property Rights,”

Azadirachtin itself is a natural product found in the seeds of the neem ,tree and it is its significant active component.

There is no patent on it, perhaps because every one recognises it as natural product.

But. ..a synthetic form of a naturally occurring compound may be patentable, because the synthetic form is not technically a product of nature, and the process by which the compound is synthesized may be patentable."

However, neither azadirachtin, a relativelycomplex chemical, nor any of the other active principles of the neemtree have yet been synthesized in laboratories.

The existing patents apply only to methods of extracting the natural chemical in the form of an emulsion or solution -methods that are simply an extension of the traditional processes used for millennia for making neem-based products.

Over the two thousand years that neem-basedbio pesticides and medicines have been used in India, many complexprocesses were developed to make them available for specific use, thoughthe active ingredients were not given Latinized scientific names.

In fact,the widespread common knowledge and common use of neem was one ofthe primary reasons given by the Indian Central Insecticide Board for notregistering neem products under the Insecticides Act of 1968. The boardargued that neem materials had been in extensive use in India for variouspurposes since time immemorial, without any known deleterious effects.

Global Trip

Under the new GATT agreement, all this will change. Universalizationof the TRIPS regime under GATT means that national laws that protect domestic innovation and manufacture will have to be altered toconform with the more stringent patent laws of developed countries,where the maximization of profits is the cornerstone of culture.

NEW IDEA: COLLECTIVE PATENTING

The patents invest the right to benefit commerciallyfrom traditional knowledge in the community that developed it.

The collective patent recognizes knowledge as a social product subject tolocal common rights, rather than an element adrift in a limbo of freeglobal access until the first commercial venture snatches it up.

Hence any company purloining local knowledge and local resources is engaging in intellectualpiracy, and the farmers' organizations see it as their right to punishsuch violators.

Afterward

In June 1995, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha)

forced the government to defer indefinitely a "patent amendment" bill the

government had proposed.That government bill would have broughtIndia into "compliance" with GATT and the WTO's new rules concerningintellectual property rights.

As this chapter goes to press (February 1996), India's laws still do notpermit product patents in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. The indigenousfarmers of India, through their protest activities about neem and otherseeds, deserve full credit for this remarkable development.

On June 9, 1995, a section of the EuropeanParliament registered strong support for India's parliamentary refusal togrant pharmaceutical product patents and registered a "legal opposition"in the European Patent Office to w. R. Grace's request for a fungicidebased on the extraction of neem oil. This gives hope that the movement isspreading.

In early 90s, the European Patent Office granted patents to the US Department of Agriculture and Multinational Agricultural Corporation (W.R. Grace of USA)

The patent was rejected on the basis that products derived from genetic resources (like peanut oil, sugarcane, corn, etc.) can not be patented.

There were about 50 companies that tried to get patents on Neem Products and about 70 patents were rejected. This dropped interest of Neem Oil by multinational mega corporation in agricultural area. 

References:

www.neemfoundation.org/neem-articles/patents-on-neem.html

www.neem-products.com/neem-applications.html

www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/crg.html

www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=368

www.icta.org/doc/shiva + holla-bhar.pdf