India acts against Danish firm's bio piracy bid

With more and more countries trying to patent bio-products part of India’s age old systems of medication and Ayurveda, India is fast awakening to the threats of bio-piracy on the rise. Recently, an attempt by a Danish firm to patent ginger, jeera (cumin), onion and turmeric's fat burning properties was foiled by India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with the help of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL).

On September 19, 2007, an application was filed at the European Patent Office, a Danish company called Claras ApS. The application claimed that the company’s invention of turmeric, cumin, ginger and onion as slimming agents was novel.

However, since the practice of bio-piracy has been on a high among countries for over a decade now; the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), along with the with the health ministry's department of Ayush, are always on a look out for such claims. Only recently a patent attempt for the herb mint (pudina) by a Chinese company was foiled.

On getting information about the Danish claim, the CSIR, with help from India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), found out ancient Ayurvedic formulations from the 5th century texts like Astanga Samgraha, Yogaratnakarah, Yogatarangini and Gadanigrahah, which contained information on the use of these four products as fat burners even back then.

The find was followed by a letter to the EPO on August 25, 2009, by the Director of TKDL Dr V K Gupta, informing the examiners, that the Indian systems of traditional medicine, have known the four products as slimming agents or fat destroyers for a long time.

A letter from CSIR's letter to EPO read:

"The patent application number EP2044850, titled method for altering the metabolism characteristic of food products, may kindly be referred to wherein the usefulness of a herbal composition of Zingiber officinale (ginger), Allium cepa (onion) , Cuminum cyminum (cumin seed) and Curcuma longa (turmeric) on being added to a food product as a slimming agent by altering the digestion characteristic/metabolism characteristic of the food product has been claimed to be novel."

It also said:

"In TKDL, there are several references where all four have been found to be used for improving digestion process and act as slimming agent. Hence, there does not seem to be any novelty or inventive step involved in the claims made in the above referred patent application."

As a result of the letter the Danish company has withdrawn its patent and claims. However, such claims have become a practice with countries. A practice because of which the CSIR and the health ministry's department of Ayush formed a collaborative venture called TKDL.

The TKDL was formed because the ministry realised that India's traditional medicine knowledge existed in languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, Tamil etc. This knowledge was not easily understood by patent examiners at the international patent offices, due to obvious language barriers. Therefore, the library was formed with the intention of overcoming these barriers.

Today the TKDL has converted the information contained in the ancient texts into five international languages - English, Japanese, French, German and Spanish. Thus, not just making the work of international patent bodies easy; but also easing out India’s battle against bio-piracy.