Nap Hal Patent Revisted
Hurrah! The Indian Government has decided not to oppose the European Patent awarded to Monsanto for wheat derived from Nap Hal land race. Advice given to the Indian Government rightly recognized that the patent in no way affected farmers’ right to grow the variety in India.
News taken from The Financial Express, 13 March 2004.
No tags for this post.One Response to 'Nap Hal Patent Revisted'
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on March 16th, 2004 at 4:02 pm
Can you please explain the glee over the decision of the Government of India not to challenge the patent which claims rights over wheat derived from Nap Hal? The Patent in question explicitly claims a wheat variety, and so is squarely in violation of the European Patent COnvention; and the disclosure of the patent shows that the genetic traits which are key to the patent (double null allele in glu-D1 gene) were wholly derived from the landrace developed in India, namely, Nap Hal.
So, how does this patent foster the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a treaty every bit as sound as GATT? How does it foster or even allow benefit sharing to the peoples who developed the valuable double null trait? How does it not violate the articles of the European Patent COnvention? How is it any less an act of biopiracy than the Basmati patent, which the Indian government DID successfully challege??