India makes headway in fending off predatory biopiracy firms

THE Traditional Knowledge of ancient civilisations, known in intellectual property parlance by its abbreviated form of TK, has come under renewed threat in the United States. An Indian company, Arjuna Natural Extracts Ltd, is taking legal action against several US firms that have allegedly patented their turmeric-based product.

It is the latest in a flurry of biopiracy incidents over the past several years that firms from India, Thailand, Malaysia, China, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have faced in the US and the West.

Biopirates have enriched themselves by plundering the natural resources of the developing and less developed countries without paying any royalty to the source countries. A report of the United Nations Development Programme estimated that "if unpaid royalty payments were being made to developing countries and indigenous peoples for the plant varieties and local knowledge used by multinational food and drug companies, those providers would earn approximately US$5.4 billion per year".