Aromatic Basmati Rice, NEEM and now Curry
What ever happened to patent fight on NEEM Tree insecticide. (The botanical name is Azadirachta INDICA)India is in NEEM. NEEM is India. Can we win the fight? American Natives were given a patent name - Indians; We East Indians didn't fight it. Now Truly Indian items are ?losing the patent fights. What are we coming to? Anything worthwhile in India is named somebody elses' patent. You know Krishna became Christ, as some claim. All the Great Software Engineers became Americans, not Indians anymore. The only ones staying Indians are the Cabbies in NYCity. They got a raw deal and bad name.
deccanchronicleonline.com
Japanese chase the curry for patent
New Delhi: Basmati is not the only Indian product for which other countries have claimed patents.
Indian curry might also soon be patented by the Japanese. Two Japanese entrepreneurs have filed a
patent claim with the Japan Patent Office for ?Cooking of Curry?, on behalf of House Foods
Corporation, a leading food company in Japan, the Hong Kong-based Asiaweek magazine reported.
The patent application says, ?The cooking of curry is carried out by mixing ingredients such as onion,
potato, carrot and meat...with water...extracted spices at least containing the extract of turmeric, cumin
and coriander, heating over a slow fire for 10-20 minutes...? Many Japanese companies, in what seems
to be a concerted effort, have filed similar applications with the Japan Patent Office.
The applications for patents pending in Japan are also listed in the worldwide list of the European Patent
office. The famous Italian Pizza is also sought to be patented by the Japanese. The question of patents is
scheduled to be discussed at the Seattle round of multilateral trade talks beginning on November 30.
Japanese enthusiasm to get patents for every eatable in the world will also have something to do with
the lack of proper guidelines in that country about evaluating intellectual property rights, an official of the
patent office said.
Of the 400,000 patent applications filed in Japan every year only an average of 30 per cent are
approved. If curry is patented in Japan, licensing fees will have to be paid to the patent-holder to make
curry on a commercial basis in whichever place the patent applies to. In that case, curry could prove to
be too hot to handle.
India is already fighting a patents case in the US, where the patent for the aromatic basmati rice has
been claimed by US-companies who have introduced it into the market under brand names like
Texmati. India and Pakistan dominate a lucrative world market for the aromatic long-grained rice
variety of rice. |
