India Works to Shield Traditional Knowledge from Modern Copyrights
- From: J Flenner <varney@[redacted]>
- Subject: India Works to Shield Traditional Knowledge from Modern Copyrights
- Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 22:26:14 -0400
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jan-june07/patents_05-21.html
Originally Aired: May 21, 2007 | PBS Online NewsHour | TRANSCRIPT
India Works to Shield Traditional Knowledge from Modern Copyrights
A new digital library in India is safeguarding ancient knowledge from
patents, which can force royalty payments for knowledge that is common
in that part of the world. NewsHour correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro
reports from New Delhi.
RAY SUAREZ: Now, safeguarding ancient knowledge in a digital library in
India. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from New Delhi.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO, NewsHour Correspondent: The healing art of yoga goes
back thousands of years in India. But over the past three decades, it's
become a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. Yoga guru Balmukund Singh
is proud of the Indian export, but when he hears that some asanas, or
postures, have been copy-written by Indians who have moved to the U.S.,
Singh gets, well, forgive me, tied up in knots.
BALMUKUND SINGH, Yoga Guru (through translator): This is our cultural
heritage. It's ours. How can anybody else patent this? If they invent
it, they can patent it. But this is originally an Indian thing. Our
sages long ago developed and demonstrated it.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It's not just yoga. In 1997, a Texas company got a
patent on basmati rice, which meant that it would get a royalty payment
when anyone else sold rice by that name. The Indian government filed
50,000 pages of evidence to show that basmati rice grown in India for
centuries was essentially the same stuff. The U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office finally revoked the basmati patent in 2001.
India's markets are filled with herbs and plants that, over the
centuries, have been concocted into remedies for almost every ailment.
It's a medicine chest that Dr. V.K. Gupta says is raided all the time by
companies and individuals in the West.
(snip)
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[Moderator: The referenced article isn't as clear as it could be about
the distinction between copyrights and patents, but both are at issue
in India at this point, for various types of traditional practice. - JMO]