Q.Explain any three examples of biopiracy.

Biopiracy cases like the neem, turmeric and basmati rice patents show foreign entities claiming exclusive rights over traditional Indian biological knowledge without consent or benefit-sharing.

Biopiracy refers to individuals, companies or institutions from other countries obtaining patents or commercial rights over biological resources or associated traditional knowledge belonging to a biodiversity-rich country, without proper authorisation, acknowledgment, or fair compensation to the country/community of origin. Three well-known examples from India are: (1) The neem patent case, in which a US company and the US Department of Agriculture obtained a European patent on a method of extracting and stabilising a neem-based fungicide, even though neem's antifungal/pesticidal properties had been traditionally known and used in India for centuries — India successfully challenged and had this patent revoked by demonstrating prior traditional use ('prior art'). (2) The turmeric patent case, in which the US Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre for the use of turmeric powder in wound healing, a property that had been documented in traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine for generations; India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) successfully contested this and had the patent revoked by providing ancient textual evidence. (3) …