FIGHT FOR TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE, INDIA’S TRYST WITH DESTINY
Much is talked about the importance of Traditional Indian Knowledge in the medical field. As the world is fighting against the COVID 19 pandemic, there is a rising support for increasing immunity. Be it the AYUSH ministry or even the fraternity of Ayurveda and Homeopathy, there is an echo about using the traditional medicines to stop the lethal effects of COVID. Even the hospitals have started suggesting ‘Adrak Wali Chai’ and Turmeric Milk to its patients as a means of cure
This gives a huge sigh of relief to the Indian scientist after remembering the fierce fight to repeal the Haldi patent that was claimed by a few American scientists. If Haldi is so important to fight against Corona Virus, then this fight was a landmark in the history of Intellectual Property Rights protection by India.
THE BATTLE OF HALDIGHATI
The story goes in 1995, where two Indian origin American scientists, Suman Das and Harihar Kohli, were granted the patent for a method of “promoting healing of a wound by administering turmeric to a patient afflicted with the wound”. The patent was assigned to the University of Mississippi Medical Centre.
This spread shockwave across the Indian Science fraternity who decided to challenge this patent in 1996. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India (CSIR) Challenged the patent claiming that the patent lacked novelty as the use of turmeric as a method for healing wounds was an age-old in India and therefore a part of the priority. Plaintiff (the CSIR) presented 832 references some of them were even a hundred years old. Some important references were Ayurvedic healing (1989), the wealth of India (1950), the Indian Materia Medica (1976), the Ayurveda Pharmacopoeia of India (1986) and selected medicinal plants of India (1992). In the words of Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, the then director of CSIR, “I strongly remember my grandmother and mother applying Haldi if we get injured against anything while playing and all. It not only used to stop the blood but it also used to start quick healing”
Novelty, Non-Obviousness and Industrial Usage are the three basic components to receive a patent. The CSIR successfully proved that the existence of traditional knowledge in India can go against patenting Haldi as it lacks novelty.
The Defendant, The University of Mississippi Medical Centre decided, following this trial to abandon the patent and the patent was reassigned to the inventors. The inventors chose to pursue the case further on the grounds that “the powder and paste had different physical properties i.e. bio-availability and observability, and therefore, all of the ordinary skills in the art would not expect, with any reasonable degree of certainty, that a powdered material would be useful in the same application as a paste of the same material. The inventors mentioned that the oral administration was available only with honey and honey itself was considered to have sound healing properties.
United States Patent and Trademark Office, however, rejected the submission and stated that both paste and powder were equivalent about the references submitted by CSIR. In 1997, the claims were rejected for the second time and in 1998, the examination certificate was issued which signified the end of the case.
The Importance of Haldi is underlined in marriages too. Had there been a patent over Haldi, perhaps even the marriages would have been costlier. The Haldi has remained ceremonious as it was earlier.
Also Read: Brands and Their Competitors in the IP Realm
THE FINAL OUTCOME
Turmeric is widely held as the first patent reexamination case where the rejection was based on the presentation of Traditional Knowledge. It is thus considered a Landmark ruling turmeric case study. What it shows is that even though something is not known it can still slip through the cracks within the patent system ensuring that patents such as the turmeric patent, which lacked Novelty, are not granted is therefore of the utmost importance. The more injurious lesson to the Indian scientific fraternity was that the real cracks were in the whole traditional knowledge system in the country. Firstly, the tendency of keeping no Monopoly over knowledge and secondly a horrific lethargy over preserving magnanimous Indian tradition which is full of empirical knowledge in many walks of life, have become animus to the whole bunch of Indian traditions as well.
Today, the importance of this two decades old Battle of Haldighati is definitely worth reminiscing
