OT A blowagainst bio-piracy!

[Guest guest]

Who would have thought it?

The European parliament did something right for a change.

There is hope for the world!

 

PRESS RELEASE

(from THE GREENS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT)

- Munich/Strasbourg, 8 March 2005

 

EPO upholds decision to withdraw 'free tree' patent:

Greens celebrate Neem biopiracy victory

 

Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni, Co-Presidents of the Greens/EFA

Group, welcomed the European Patent Office's historic decision today to

definitively uphold the revocation of a patent on the Indian neem tree,

thus dealing a killer blow to biopiracy in Europe and around the world.

 

" We congratulate our former Green President Magda Aelvoet on her

important victory today and thank her, and her fellow plaintiffs, for

their decade long struggle against biopiracy. "

 

Former Belgian health minister and Minister of State Magda Aelvoet, was

President of the Green Group in the European Parliament when the

original submission to the EPO to cancel the patent was made on 14 June

1995. She represented the European Greens in Munich today. Speaking

after the decision, Aelvoet said:

 

" Our victory against biopiracy is threefold. First, it is a victory for

traditional knowledge and practices. This is the first time anybody has

been able to have a patent rejected on these grounds. Second, it is a

victory for solidarity; with the people of developing countries - who

have definitively earned the sovereign rights to their natural

resources, and with our colleagues in the NGOs who fought with us

against this patent for the last ten years. And third, coming as it does

on International Women's Day, this is also a victory for women. The

three people who successfully argued this case against the might of the

American administration and its corporate allies, were women; Vandana

Shiva, Linda Bullard and myself. "

 

At a meeting in Munich the EPO rejected a challenge made in 2001 by the

United States Ministry of Agriculture (USDA) and the chemicals

multinational WR Grace to the office's previous decision to cancel their

patent on the fungicidal properties of seeds extracted from the neem

tree. The EPO originally issued the patent on 14 September 1994, before

withdrawing it under pressure from the Green Group in the European

Parliament and two NGOs on 10 May 2000. Today's decision brings to an

end the ten year legal process.

 

The EPO definitely accepted the arguments from the Greens, the Research

Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy (India),

and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements

(Germany) that the patent was unacceptable as it had no particular

innovative or inventive qualities.

 

Biological piracy, or biopiracy, is the process of patenting living

resources or traditional knowledge and practices from predominantly

developing countries and applying intellectual property restrictions on

their use - to the exclusive profit of rich developed companies or

countries. The Persian name for the neem trea is Azad-Darakth or the

'free tree'. The Indian people have for millennia used this tree in

agriculture, public health, medicine, toiletries, cosmetics and

livestock protection.

 

[ENDS]

 

 

Ien in the Kootenays

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