Neem Patent Turns Bitter For Europes W R Grace
In the first case of disallowing an active patent on an Indian herb, the European Patent Office (EPO) has upheld the claim of the Neem Campaign, led by environmentalist Vandana Shiva, against a patent on neem oil owned by W R Grace and Co, a leading European multinational.
Coming on the heels of India winning the turmeric patent case in the US, the European Patent Office, functioning under the European Union, has passed an interim order to disallow the patent on using neem oil as an anti-fungicide.
In the US case, only an application seeking a patent had been filed when it was challenged by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The European pharmaceutical major had patented neem oil for its fungicidal effect, (EPO patent no. 436257 B1) over an year ago and was marketing the neem oil in the European Union.
On an application by Vandana Shiva and Madga Alvoet of the Neem Campaign, the European Patent Office said, In summary, it appears that the present patent cannot be maintained in view of the affidavit A2.
The interim judgement delivered in mid-November has sought more information from the applicants concerning the extraction process in order to proceed with the next step regarding patent cancellation, according to the Indian Academy of Sciences Journal said.
The argument of Neem Campaign was that neem and its products were part of the traditional knowledgebase of India, available in classical texts for thousands of years.
The anti-fungal property for which W R Grace was granted a patent was known since centuries and commonly prepared in Indian rural areas.
As in the argument by the CSIR that neem and its derivatives were extensively used as low cost antibiotics and antifungals, in this case too the EPO was told that maintaining the European patent would affect a source of cheap medicine to millions of Indians who could not afford costly medicines made by multinational drug companies.
On August 23, 1997, the United States patent office had nullified the claim of novelty of neem as wound healer, filed by a group of United States scientists.
The Neem Campaign was initiated in 1993 to mobilise world-wide support to protect technical knowledgebase and resources of bio-rich countries from piracy by bio-poor (read western) countries.