Exporters To Formulate Strategy On Us Basmati Patent Soon

Rice exporters are likely to formulate a strategy soon to counter the patent given for Basmati rice to a US company by the United States Patent Office, the All-India Rice Exporters Association said yesterday.

We will sit together sometime next week and decide on the strategy, but let the government first file the objection, association executive director Anil Adalakha said.

Ricetec Inc has been given the patent for Basmati and has also been allowed to market it under any brand name.

Information about the patent accorded to Ricetec had shocked both exporters and growers, he said. Though Basmati-type rice could be grown in the US, it was inferior to Indian and Pakistani Basmati, whose quality, aroma and grain were the best.

 

Indian and Pakistani Basmati are costlier, he said, adding the US company would now try to take advantage of the situation commercially by claiming that it was the only patented Basmati. Ricetec had received the patent in September, but the information was received only after the government objected to the United Kingdom registering Ricetecs Texmati trademark. In reply, Ricetec said it had received the patent for its Basmati line rice from the patent office in its country.

Patent processing in the US differs vastly from that followed in other places and products are patented without seeking objections.

The patent accorded to Basmati comes as a surprise since only a couple of months ago the government successfully got cancelled the patent accorded to healing properties of turmeric.

The government has expressed concern over the matter, especially in the background of the turmeric affair. It has decided to approach the US Patent office to protect the interest of domestic growers. We will have to fight it out to ensure that we do not lose our status, Adalakha said. The government contends that the patent could not be given for Basmati as it denotes a specific variety of rice grown in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.