Munich, Germany
March 8, 2005
Source:
IFOAM
In a landmark decision today, the
European Patent
Office upheld a decision to revoke in its entirety a patent
on a
fungicidal product derived from seeds of the Neem, a tree
indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. The historic action
resulted from a legal challenge mounted ten years ago by three
Opponents: the renowned Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva,
Magda Aelvoet, then MEP and President of the Greens in the
European Parliament, and the International Federation of Organic
Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Their joint Legal Opposition
claimed that the fungicidal properties of the Neem tree had been
public knowledge in India for many centuries and that this
patent exemplified how international law was being misused to
transfer biological wealth
from the South into the hands of a few corporations, scientists,
and countries of the North. Today the EPO’s Technical Board of
Appeals dismissed an Appeal by the would-be proprietors—the
United States of America and the company Thermo Trilogy—and
maintained the decision of its Opposition Division five years
ago to revoke the Neem patent in its entirety, thus bringing to
a close this ten-year battle in the world’s first legal
challenge to a biopiracy patent.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, who travelled from India to be present at
today’s hearing, commented, “What a lovely celebration for the
women of India that this long-awaited decision falls on March
8th, International
Women’s Day. Denying the patent means upholding the value of
traditional knowledge for millions of women not only in India,
but throughout the South. The FREE TREE WILL STAY FREE. This
victory is the result of extremely long solidarity. It is a
victory of committed citizens over commercial interests and big
powers.”
Magda Aelvoet, Belgian Minister of State and former Health and
Environment Minister, was President of the Green Group in the
European Parliament when the original Opposition was submitted.
Just after the ruling, she commented, "Our victory against
biopiracy is threefold. First, it is a victory for traditional
knowledge and practices. This is the first time anybody has been
able to have a patent rejected on these grounds. Second, it is a
victory for solidarity: With the people of developing
countries—who have definitively earned the sovereign rights to
their natural resources—and and with our colleagues in the NGOs,
who fought with us against this patent for the last ten years.
And third, coming as it does on International Women's Day, this
is also a victory for women. The three people who successfully
argued this case against the might of the U.S. administration
and its corporate allies, were women: Vandana Shiva, Linda
Bullard and myself. It can also inspire and help people from
developing countries who suffer the same kind of theft but did
not think it was possible to combat it."
Linda Bullard, former President of the International Federation
of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), stated, “We are deeply
gratified that through our case the EPO has recognized the
intellectual achievements of the South. We were able to
establish that traditional knowledge systems can be a means of
establishing “prior art” and thus used to destroy the claims of
“novelty” and “inventiveness” in these biopiracy patents. This
now becomes case law, but the historic precedent must be further
developed and transposed into overall international
legal frameworks so that this type of theft is no longer
possible.”
Although two days had been set aside to examine the Appeal, the
case was so clear that the Technical Board of Appeals needed
only two hours to reach a decision to dismiss the Appeal.
The Opponents were legally represented throughout the ten year
battle by Prof. Dr. Fritz Dolder, Professor Intellectual
Property with the Faculty of Law at the University of Basel, in
Switzerland.* Dr. Dolder explained
that a reformulated claim submitted by the patent holders as
part of their Appeal was rejected on formal grounds.
Subsequently, the main body of the patent was tested with regard
to novelty, disclosure, and inventive step…“and revoked
irrevocably! This is the first time that the EPO has legally
concluded a biopiracy case.”
Source:
CORDIS News
EPO accepts
biopiracy argument and revokes patent
The
European Patent
Office (EPO) has, for the first time, decided to withdraw a
patent on the grounds of biopiracy.
A patent was awarded to the US Department of Agriculture and the
multinational company WR Grace in 1995 for the fungicidal
properties of seeds extracted from the neem tree, native to
India. But a campaign for the revocation of the patent was
immediately launched by a three-party coalition: the European
Parliament's Green Party, India's Research Foundation for
Science, Technology and Ecology, and the International
Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.
'[This] is a victory for traditional knowledge and practises.
This is the first time anybody has been able to have a patent
rejected on these grounds. Second, it is a victory for
solidarity; with the people of developing countries - who have
definitively earned the sovereign rights to their natural
resources, and with our colleagues in the NGOs [non-governmental
organisations] who fought with us against this patent for the
last ten years,' said Magda Aelvoet, who was president of the
Green Party in 1995, when the original submission to the EPO was
made.
The patent was revoked five years after it was awarded, but the
decision was appealed by the US Department of Agriculture and WR
Grace. The decision on 8 March brings the ten-year dispute to a
close.
'Biopiracy' describes a process in which living resources or
traditional knowledge and practises are patented, thus applying
intellectual property restrictions to their use. The resources
in question are predominantly from developing countries, and are
the subject of patent applications by companies in developed
countries. The neem tree has been used for thousands of years in
India in agriculture, public health, medicine, toiletries,
cosmetics and livestock protection. A patent application should
always be rejected if there is prior existing knowledge about a
product. |