Chinese company tries to patent "Pudina" (Mint)

[RobbieS]

Interesting story, though the source is TOI......

India foils Chinese bid to patent 'pudina' - India - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: India has foiled a major Chinese bio-piracy bid to patent the use of medicinal plants 'pudina' (mint) and 'kalamegha' (andrographis) for the treatment of H5N1 avian influenza or bird flu.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with the help of India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), dug out formulations from ancient Ayurveda and Unani texts, like 'Cakradattah', 'Bhaisajya Ratnavali', 'Kitaab-al-Haawi-fil-Tibb' and 'Qaraabaadeen Azam wa Akmal', dating back to the 9th century, to show that both 'pudina' and 'kalamegha' have been widely used in India since ages for influenza and epidemic fevers.

After receiving exhaustive evidence from CSIR that confirmed India's stand, the European Patent Office (EPO) on June 10 cancelled the decision to grant patent to Livzon, a major Chinese pharmaceutical company, on the medicinal properties of pudina and kalamegha for treating bird flu.

It all began when Livzon, on January 19, 2007 filed a patent application at EPO claiming usefulness of pudina and kalamegha for the treatment of bird flu to be novel. Impressed with the data, EPO decided to grant patent to Livzon on February 25, 2010.

However, on April 27, director of TKDL Dr V K Gupta shot off a letter to the EPO informing the examiners that the medicinal properties of pudina and kalamegha have been long known in Indian traditional medicine.

The letter said, "The patent application number EP1849473, titled Chinese traditional medicine composition for treatment of avian influenza, method for preparation, and application thereof, may kindly be referred to wherein the usefulness of andrographis (kalamegha) and mint (pudina) for treatment of fever, detoxification and for the treatment of avian influenza, has been claimed to be novel."

The letter added, "In the TKDL, there are several references where andrographis and mint are used for the treatment of influenza and epidemic fever. Hence, there does not seem to be any novelty or inventive step involved in the claims made in the above referred patent application."

Following the letter, the EPO set up a three-member panel to study the evidence. On June 10, the panel decided to cancel the Chinese patent claim.

TKDL is a collaborative project between CSIR and Union health ministry's department of Ayush.

In 2000, a TKDL expert group estimated that about 2,000 wrong patents concerning Indian systems of medicine were being granted every year at the international level, mainly due to the fact that India's traditional medicine knowledge existed in languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, Tamil etc. These were neither accessible nor understood by the patent examiners at the international patent offices.

TKDL, therefore, overcame these language and format barriers by scientifically converting and making available information contents in 34 million A4 size pages of the ancient texts into five international languages -- English, Japanese, French, German and Spanish.

 

[indushek]

Good development. But the thing to be noted is why does our country take only corrective steps, not take up proactive steps like filing for these patents ourselves.

 

[Justin Joseph]

Good development. But the thing to be noted is why does our country take only corrective steps, not take up proactive steps like filing for these patents ourselves.

We have developed database namely TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Database Library).

The project TKDL involves documentation of the traditional knowledge available in public domain in the form of existing literature related to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga, in digitized format in five international languages which are English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.

Present Status (May 2010)

Present status of transcription of the traditional medicine formulation in the Traditional knowledge Digital Library is given in the following table :
Discipline No. of texts (including volumes) used for transcription Transcribed
Ayurveda 75 books 85,500
Unani 10 books 1,20,200
Siddha 50 books 13,470
Yoga 15 books 1098
Total 150 books 2,20,268


Now, we have more then 2 lakh 20 thousand formulas in these digital database.

And its the property of all of us Indians and it can't be patented by anyone anywhere in the world.

So, u got ur answer.

 

[WillUSDemiseBePeaceful?]

China learning from the US bad things.
They need to do it the right way.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/20/stories/2008012055790700.htm

 

[gubbi]

China learning from the US bad things.
They need to do it the right way.

The Hindu : National : Herbal cure for Type II diabetes granted patent

To do it right, requires extensive research, not just rehashing age old recipes! Read carefully what has been written in the article you posted.

Btw, there is a moratorium on patenting living organisms (plants and animals) which have been existing or used by humans for a long time. One cannot patent even the active constituents of the plant products if such products or mixtures/preparations containing the active ingredients have been used for ages. I will dig for more info about such a moratorium.

There were previous attempts, IIRC by a US company to patent Neem and a Japanese company to patent Turmeric products! Needless to say, both lost their cases.