For thousands of years Indian villagers have used an extract from seeds of the neem tree as an insecticide. So when a U.S. company patented a process for producing the substance in 1994, India reacted with outrage. After spending millions of dollars in legal fees to successfully overturn the patent, India's government now is creating a 30-million-page [open-access] database of traditional knowledge to fend off entrepreneurs trying to patent the country's ancient lore....The database, called the Traditional Knowledge Data Library, will make information available to patent offices around the world to ensure that traditional remedies are not presented as new discoveries....The government also has successfully challenged patents on the use of the spice turmeric to heal wounds and rashes and a patent on a rice strain derived from India's famed Basmati rice. But that is a tiny fraction of the problem. A 2003 study by...[India's National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources or NISCAIR] estimated some 7,000 patents worldwide are based on Indian indigenous knowledge, far too many for India to challenge in expensive legal fights....Currently it is difficult for overseas patent office researchers to prove purported innovations are really based on old lore because, while the information is widely published in India, it is often in ancient languages like Sanskrit or modern regional languages like Tamil. "We decided we have to break the language and access barrier," [V.K.] Gupta [Chairman of NISCAIR] said....More than 10 million pages already have been loaded into the system and 20 million more will be available by the end of 2006, Gupta said....The issue is not just a matter of national pride. It also has financial implications. A pharmaceutical company, for instance, could develop a medicine from a treatment long-used by an indigenous group and reap big profits while also charging those very people to use it. So India and its allies want to ensure that profits arising from traditional knowledge are shared with local people. "Developing countries as a whole are saying that there should be benefit sharing," said Dua, the Commerce Ministry official.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/27/2005 11:03:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
