Indian Atrocities

S.A.M. said:
I doubt any of them lead to people suffering from starvation or inability to afford medicines.
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I'm not aware of any examples of bioprospecting that have led to such outcomes. US patents don't apply outside of the United States, so the patents have little impact on medicine supplies in the home countries. The objection is about who gets to make money off of selling these things in the US market.
 
quadraphonics said:
I'm not aware of any examples of bioprospecting that have led to such outcomes. US patents don't apply outside of the United States, so the patents have little impact on medicine supplies in the home countries. The objection is about who gets to make money off of selling these things in the US market.
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It definitely affects the economy

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/legal.htm

The Washington-based International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), based in New Delhi, want to stop US rice millers, producers and trade associations from marketing low quality US aromatic rice under the terms "basmati" and "jasmine" in order to receive a premium price.

"The current US policy of allowing virtually any aromatic rice to be labelled basmati or jasmine is nothing short of criminal," says Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, a project of ICTA.

The Texas company, RiceTec, Inc. for example, sells US grown rice as "Texmati" as "American basmati" and "jasmati" as "American Jasmine.'

Both groups filed legal petitions this month with two US government agencies to revise their laws to protect the jasmine and basmati rice types grown in Asia. The petitions say current US regulations allow US companies to deceive consumers and threaten the livelihoods of millions of Indian and Pakistani farmers who grow basmati rice and Thai farmers who grow jasmine rice.

Current US rice standards allow companies to use the terms "basmati" and "jasmine" as generic terms that can apply to rice grown anywhere.

One petition, filed with the US Department of Agriculture, demands that it amend its rice standards on "aromatic" rice to clarify that the term "basmati" can only be used for rice grown in India and Pakistan, and the word "jasmine" grown in Thailand.

"Since American consumers and farmers correctly believe that "Basmati" rice can only be produced in India and Pakistan and "Jasmine" rice in Thailand, the use of the descriptors "basmati" and "jasmine" in current US rice standards is misleading," says the petition.

The groups' proposal would make those of the US consistent with those of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom's Code of Practice for Rice, says Kimbrell.

The other petition, filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), demanded the agency initiate a trade regulation to prevent US grown rice from being advertised or otherwise represented as "basmati" or "jasmine."

The groups are making their case under the FTC Act which prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts of practices in or affecting commerce."

Basmati rice is critical to the economies of India and Pakistan, says the petition. Each year India sells approximately $300 million' worth of Basmati rice. And it is counted among the nation's fastest growing exports. In Thailand - dependent on its rice exports to alleviate its economic downturn - jasmine fetches the steepest price among all Thai rice.

"When American companies steal the very names and strains of our indigenous rice, they threaten the lives of millions of farmers and their families in India, Pakistan, and Thailand," says Vandana Shiva, executive director of RFSTE.
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S.A.M. said:
It definitely affects the economy

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/legal.htm
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I can't see where that has anything to do with biopiracy. Plenty of crops that are indigenous to the America are grown the world over, depriving American farmers the profits that would ensue from protected status as producers. For example, potatos and tomatoes.

And, likewise, piracy of the myriad American goods the world over also negatively impact America's economy.

For our part, we at least provide institutions with mechanisms for the farmers in India to seek redress if they feel they're being ripped off (as your link describes).
 
quadraphonics said:
I can't see where that has anything to do with biopiracy. Plenty of crops that are indigenous to the America are grown the world over, depriving American farmers the profits that would ensue from protected status as producers. For example, potatos and tomatoes.

And, likewise, piracy of the myriad American goods the world over also negatively impact America's economy.

For our part, we at least provide institutions with mechanisms for the farmers in India to seek redress if they feel they're being ripped off (as your link describes).
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Not always

A classic case is that of the Rosy Periwinkle (Madagascar Periwinkle).[2] Research into the plant was prompted by the plant's traditional medicinal role and resulted in the discovery of a large number of biologically active chemicals, including vincristine, a lucrative agent useful during chemotherapy. Vincristine was initially patented and marketed by Eli Lilly. It is widely reported that the country of origin did not receive any payment.[3]
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Especially combined with this:

In pharmaceutical research, thousands of dead-ends may be investigated before a positive result is found. The lobby group Rural Advancement Foundation International reports that random testing has a success rate of about 1:10000, but if testing is combined with local shamanic knowledge, the success rate can be improved to about 1:2.[5] A less optimistic, but nevertheless significant success rate increase to 1:5000 is attributed to the NIH.[6]
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But legal action does work:

In 1995 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 (Azadirachta indica), which grows throughout India; Indian villagers have long understood the tree's medicinal value. Although the patent had been granted on an extraction technique, the Indian press described it as a patent on the Neem tree itself; the result was widespread public outcry, which was echoed throughout the developing world. Legal action by the Indian government followed, with the patent eventually being overturned (2005).[8]
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S.A.M. said:
Not always
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That the contestants don't always get the outcome they're seeking doesn't imply that there isn't a meaningful process in place.

S.A.M. said:
But legal action does work:
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"Legal action" is precisely the mechanism I was referring to. The patent office isn't some neocolonial cabal dedicated to pillaging the developing world. If you can demonstrate prior art, they'll invalidate the patents. For that matter, there's nothing to stop people from patenting this stuff themselves in the first place.

It's worth noting that the outcry over this stuff is based on misconceptions about what is and is not being patented, as is described in your quote.
 
quadraphonics said:
I'm not aware of any examples of bioprospecting that have led to such outcomes. US patents don't apply outside of the United States, so the patents have little impact on medicine supplies in the home countries. The objection is about who gets to make money off of selling these things in the US market.
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They have legal protection under international copyright law.

It also goes beyond medicines to things like yoga. It just goes to show how desperately copyright laws need to be changed... copyrighting things existing hundreds to thousands of years... :mad:
 
Exhumed said:
They have legal protection under international copyright law.
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No, patents and copyrights are separate concepts governed by separate bodies of law. The only way a US patent applies anywhere outside the US is if another country makes a law stating that it will respect and enforce American patents. For that matter, international copyright law works the same way.

Exhumed said:
It also goes beyond medicines to things like yoga. It just goes to show how desperately copyright laws need to be changed... copyrighting things existing hundreds to thousands of years... :mad:
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You can't copyright yoga; you have to come up with a modified version that is sufficiently original (although it doesn't have to be all that original). And, even then, everyone else is free to continue practicing yoga with no restrictions.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/opinion/07mehta.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The United States government has issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks. There’s big money in those pretzel twists and contortions — $3 billion a year in America alone.

It’s a mystery to most Indians that anybody can make that much money from the teaching of a knowledge that is not supposed to be bought or sold like sausages. Should an Indian, in retaliation, patent the Heimlich maneuver, so that he can collect every time a waiter saves a customer from choking on a fishbone?

The Indian government is not laughing. It has set up a task force that is cataloging traditional knowledge, including ayurvedic remedies and hundreds of yoga poses, to protect them from being pirated and copyrighted by foreign hucksters. The data will be translated from ancient Sanskrit and Tamil texts, stored digitally and available in five international languages, so that patent offices in other countries can see that yoga didn’t originate in a San Francisco commune.

It is worth noting that the people in the forefront of the patenting of traditional Indian wisdom are Indians, mostly overseas. We know a business opportunity when we see one and have exported generations of gurus skilled in peddling enlightenment for a buck. The two scientists in Mississippi who patented the medicinal use of turmeric, a traditional Indian spice, are Indians. So is the strapping Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga, who has copyrighted his method of teaching yoga — a sequence of 26 poses in an overheated room — and whose lawyers sent out threatening notices to small yoga studios that he claimed violated his copyright.
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The article implies that it does restrict others, but it doesn't go into details.

Here is a link of so called Bikram yoga: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/opinion/07mehta.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

About half of them I personally know are not originally his.

quadraphonics
No, patents and copyrights are separate concepts governed by separate bodies of law. The only way a US patent applies anywhere outside the US is if another country makes a law stating that it will respect and enforce American patents. For that matter, international copyright law works the same way.
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OK then, but it is the same in effect.
 
Exhumed said:
Here is a link of so called Bikram yoga: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/opinion/07mehta.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

About half of them I personally know are not originally his.
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I'm quite familiar with Bikram yoga, and what you need to understand is that the copyright in question doesn't cover any particular pose (all of which are standard, well-known yoga poses whose ownership could never be successfully defended in a court of law). The copyright covers the name, method (which is 26 specific poses, in a specific order, with specific breathing exercises, in a specific setting -- the heated room is the hallmark of Bikram yoga) and associated instructional techniques. If you want to come up with an Exhumed Yoga consisting of some set of common yoga moves in, say, a cold room and copyright that, Bikram won't be able to stop you. Likewise, if you want to start a regular yoga studio with no temperature-controlled rooms, Bikram won't be able to do anything about that either, as long as you don't call it "Bikram" or something dumb like that.

It also bears mentioning that the more extravagent intellectual property claims that Bikram has made are very much in contention, and it is far from clear that he will come out on top. You should wait for the courts to settle the cases before pronouncing it a failure of the legal system.

Moreover, Bikram is an Indian who started this school in India, so it's hard to see how this has much of anything to do with cultural imperialism.

Pilates is a similar situation. The point is that in neither case does it impinge on the rights or abilities of anyone, anywhere in the world, to practice/teach/write about/etc. traditional yoga techniques and methods. You just can't copy their exact, specific routines or use their names. It's not a big deal. For some reason the Indian authorities are hysterical about this kind of stuff and so overreact whenever it comes up.

Exhumed said:
OK then, but it is the same in effect.
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The point is that if people in the countries in question feel their rights are being trampled by US copyright and patent practices, their governments are free to repeal the laws and treaties that bind them together. Of course, by reciprocity, America is then no longer bound to honor their intellectual property either. Moreover, there's absoutely nothing to stop people from anywhere in the world from patenting and copyrighting this stuff, both in their own countries and in the US, nor is there anything to stop them from contesting the legitimacy of said patents and copyrights. So I'm having a hard time seeing how it's unfair.
 
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