India makes headway in fending off predatory biopiracy firms
The Traditional Knowledge of ancient healing systems is still vulnerable to biopiracy as foreign companies and researchers try to patent Asian herbs and cures illegally.
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 …
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