Biopiracy

Where a pirate, in the ordinary sense, steals from and harms others to enrich themselves, a biopirate does not kill -- they steal a patent, or misuse the patent system. Biopiracy is defined as the theft of natural products (or of indigenous/traditional knowledge), followed by patenting and selling them, without giving any benefit or compensation back to the country or community of origin. In short, it is the unauthorised misappropriation of a biological resource or of indigenous knowledge.

Developed, industrialised, financially rich nations tend to be comparatively poor in biodiversity and traditional knowledge, while developing and underdeveloped nations tend to hold abundant biodiversity, along with a traditional, generations-deep understanding of how to sustainably use their local bio-resources -- knowledge of food and crop varieties and farming practice, of sustainable management and conservation of natural resources and biological diversity, and of biologically important medicines. Conserving species, habitat and biodiversity is therefore tied directly to the survival of the tribal and traditional communities who hold this knowledge -- and that knowledge is exactly what biopiracy threatens.

Three well-known examples illustrate the problem. Neem (Azadirachta indica) has been used by people in India in many ways since time immemorial, and this knowledge was shared openly with the world; in the early 1990s, the USDA and the American company W.R. Grace nonetheless sought a European Patent Office patent on a 'method for controlling [fungi] on plants by the aid of hydrophobic extracted neem oil' -- patenting knowledge that was already India's traditional heritage. Basmati rice, a long-grained aromatic variety native to the Indian subcontinent, was the subject of a 1997 patent granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the Texas-based company RiceTec Inc., for 'Basmati rice line and grains' (trade name Texmati), based on twenty broad claims of having 'invented' the rice; following public protest in India, the USPTO rejected all these claims in March 2001. Haldi (turmeric) was the subject of a US patent granted in March 1995 to two American researchers of Indian origin at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who claimed to have discovered its wound-healing properties -- properties that had, in fact, been known in India (including in Ayurveda) for centuries. India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Researc …