CASE STUDY

THE NEEM PATENT:

INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT OVER THE
COMMODIFICATION OF LIFE

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-

Mr.Vasant Kothari Digvijay Pandey
Rahul Krishna nigam
M-FTECH (1ST SEM)
 What is Patent?
 An industrially useful invention
 Which is new and not part of the public
domain
 Confers upon the patentee monopoly in the
use of
 the invention for a fixed period
 Protects the workable idea and the concept of
an
 industrially useful invention
 Why Patent?
• Patents were historically developed to insure
that inventors could share in the financial
returns and benefits deriving from the use of
their inventions.

Patents ensure profits

through monopolies
 What is Neem?
Neem (Azadirachta indica) is a tree from
India and other parts of South and Southeast
Asia.
Neem (Azadirachta indica) is a tree from
India and other parts of South and Southeast
Asia
One of the world’s largest plantations is in
Saudi Arabia, where approximately 50,000
trees have been planted on the Plains of Arafat .
 Application of Neem
Neem has been regarded as a wonder tree, the
world over, capable of solving a large number of
human and animal diseases.
Pharmaceutical companies are making use of
this natural product as an composition in quite a
few allopathic medicines.
Neem in its raw form, in extracts
and as finished product finds
various application in animal and
human health, in cosmetics etc.
 The politics of Neem
patent
a patent has been granted to the U.S. Company
W.R. Grace on a compound in the tree
(azadirachtin) for the production of a biopesticide.

In 1993, over five hundred thousand South Indian

farmers rallied to protest foreign patents on plants
such as the neem, and launched a nation-wide
resistance movement.
 Under free trade agreements such as GATT
(General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade),
countries of the developing world will feel
strong pressures to implement U.S.-style
patent systems

Multi-national corporations can make large

profits on their “discoveries,” while depriving
the communities which have fostered this
knowledge for centuries of the choice of how
they would like to use their own knowledge
and native species.
 A corporation tried to patent a compound of the
neem tree, which provides a living for large
populations.

Azadirachtin itself is a
natural product found
in the seeds of the
neem ,tree and it is its
significant
active component.
 Neem Patents
Numerous neem products
have received patents. Several
of these have been granted to
Indian companies for a range
of products including a
contraceptive (patent granted
to the National Institute of
Immunology in 1993) and an
environmentally safe pesticide
(for Godrej Soaps in 1994).
  Since the 1980s, many neem related process
and products have been patented in Japan, USA
and European countries. The first US patent
was obtained by Terumo Corporation in 1983
for its therapeutic preparation from neem bark
 Since the 1980s, many neem related process
and products have been patented in Japan,
USA and European countries. The first US
patent was obtained by Terumo Corporation in
1983 for its therapeutic preparation from neem
bark
 But the most controversial patents are those
granted to the US company WR Grace & Co
for extraction and storage processes. They are:
 US patent No 4946681,
granted in 1990 for improving
the storage stability of neem
seed extracts containing
azadirachtin (a substance
obtained from Azadirachta
(neem). (The inventor is
named as James F Walter of
Ashton, Maryland.
US patent No 5124349, 1994 for patent on an
extraction process and storage solvent to the
US Company W.R. Grace (presently Certis)

The WR Grace patents

provoked
a national outcry
 Having gathered their patents and clearance
from the EPA, four years later, Grace
commercialized its product by setting up
manufacturing plant in collaboration with P.J.
Margo Pvt. Ltd in India and continued to file
patents from their own research in USA and
other parts of world

 Aside from Grace, neem based pesticides were

also marketed by another company, AgriDyne
Technologies Inc., USA
 Grace Patent Controversy

 In April 1993, a Congressional Research

Service (CRS) report to the U.S. Congress
titled-,
 “Biotechnology, Indigenous Peoples, and
Intellectual Property Rights,”
 Azadirachtin itself is a natural product found in
the seeds of the neem ,tree and it is its
significant active component.
There is no patent on it, perhaps because
every one recognises it as natural product.

But. ..a synthetic form of a naturally

occurring compound may be
patentable, because the synthetic
form is not technically a product of
nature, and the process by which the
compound is synthesized may be
patentable."
 However, neither azadirachtin, a relatively
complex chemical, nor any of the other active
principles of the neem
tree have yet been synthesized in laboratories.

 The existing patents apply only to methods of

extracting the natural chemical in the form of
an emulsion or solution -methods that are
simply an extension of the traditional
processes used for millennia for making neem-
based products.
 Over the two thousand
years that neem-based
bio pesticides and
medicines have been used
in India, many complex
processes were developed
to make them available for
specific use, though
the active ingredients were
not given Latinized
scientific names.
 In fact,
the widespread common knowledge
and common use of neem was one of
the primary reasons given by the
Indian Central Insecticide Board for
not
registering neem products under the
Insecticides Act of 1968. The board
argued that neem materials had been
in extensive use in India for various
purposes since time immemorial,
without any known deleterious
effects.
 Global Trip
Under the new GATT agreement, all this will
change. Universalization
of the TRIPS regime under GATT means that
national laws that
protect domestic innovation and manufacture will
have to be altered to
conform with the more stringent patent laws of
developed countries,
where the maximization of profits is the
cornerstone of culture.
 NEW IDEA: COLLECTIVE
PATENTING
The patents invest the right to benefit
commercially
from traditional knowledge in the community
that developed it.
The collective patent recognizes knowledge as a
social product subject to
local common rights, rather than an element adrift
in a limbo of free
global access until the first commercial venture
snatches it up.
 Hence any company purloining local
knowledge and local resources is engaging in
intellectual
piracy, and the farmers' organizations see it as
their right to punish
such violators.
 Afterward

In June 1995, the Upper House of the Indian

Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
forced the government to defer indefinitely a
"patent amendment" bill the
government had proposed.
That government bill would have brought
India into "compliance" with GATT and the
WTO's new rules concerning
intellectual property rights.
 As this chapter goes to press (February 1996),
India's laws still do not
permit product patents in pharmaceuticals and
agriculture. The indigenous
farmers of India, through their protest activities
about neem and other
seeds, deserve full credit for this remarkable
development.
 On June 9, 1995, a section of the European
Parliament registered strong support for India's
parliamentary refusal to
grant pharmaceutical product patents and
registered a "legal opposition"
in the European Patent Office to w. R. Grace's
request for a fungicide
based on the extraction of neem oil. This gives
hope that the movement is
spreading.
 In early 90s, the European Patent Office
granted patents to the US Department of
Agriculture and Multinational Agricultural
Corporation (W.R. Grace of USA)

The patent was rejected on the basis that

products derived from genetic resources
(like peanut oil, sugarcane, corn, etc.) can not be
patented.
 There were about 50 companies that tried to get
patents on Neem Products and about 70 patents
were rejected. This dropped interest of Neem
Oil by multinational mega corporation in
agricultural area.
 
 References:

www.neemfoundation.org/neem-articles/patents-on-neem.html

www.neem-products.com/neem-applications.html

www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/crg.html

www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=368

www.icta.org/doc/shiva + holla-bhar.pdf