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India wins neem battle against US
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Wednesday, 16 March, 2005, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Mumbai
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India has won a 10-year long major battle at the European Patent Office against the grant of patent on use of neem as a fungicide. India cited this as a traditional knowledge available with farmers and the scientific community. The opposition division of European Patent Office completely revoked the patent granted to the United States department of agriculture and W R Grace for a fungicide derived from the seeds of the neem tree. This was earlier revoked in 2000 after India appealed against the patent.
The case began five years ago when Vandana Shiva's Research Foundation, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and Magda Aelvoet filed a case against the patent. Aelvolet, a former Green member of the European Parliament, is now environment minister of Belgium.
The multinational, however, went in for an appeal against the patent revocation, which was rejected after India led by environmentalist Vandana Shiva presented further evidence to support that use of neem in varied forms is part of traditional Indian knowledge and not a novel product. The documented evidences included research done by two scientists prior to 1995 on use of neem, known for its medicinal properties, for making several products like fungicide.
THE fungicidal properties of the neem tree have been public knowledge in India for several centuries. The European Patent office, which upheld a decision to revoke in its entirety a patent on the fungicidal product derived from seeds of the neem endorsed this.
"This is a major victory for us as the award of patents could have been damaging as the US company had tried to enlarge the scope to include all neem end products," Shiva, who heads the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, told IANS from Munich.
Indian experts testified that there was no invention involved in deriving the fungicide as it had always been in use in India. Following an extensive testimony by an Indian expert, Abhay Phadke, the panel said there was no inventive step involved, as claimed, in a fungicide derived from the neem tree. Another witness, Dr U B Singh, also provided affidavits confirming that the art of deriving fungicide from neem seeds had been practised in India from ancient times. EPO revoked the patent, saying there was no inventive step involved, as claimed.
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