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India leads the move for patents for Asian traditional systems of medicine

India today urged other Asian countries to codify the existing knowledge on traditional systems of medicine on an urgent basis and bring it to the public domain to provide protection from patents.

This has become all the more urgent as some developed countries have recently granted patents to such knowledge already available in Asian countries, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dalit Ezhimalai said while inaugurating a three-day Asian regional seminar on intellectual property rights issue in traditional medicines in New Delhi.

It was unfortunate that such patents were granted due to non-availability of codified information to patent examiners in developed countries. Anything which falls under the public domain automatically becomes non-patentable and therefore proper codification of existing knowledge of traditional systems of medicine would serve as a caveat for providing protection from patents, the minister said.

Ezhimalai said it was also important to protect the existing knowledge banks in traditional systems of medicine. The products of such knowledge and the guiding philosophies, methods of treatment and process of manufacturing the products also should be protected from piracy, he said.

The minister wanted delegates from 30 countries assembled for the seminar to discuss the usage of information networks in relation to monitoring patents filed or trade marks applied for in various countries.

Developing countries faced the peculiar problem of getting to know about the patents only after these were granted. If the information could be available at the time of filing of patents, objections could be filed at the appropriate time, he said.

In India, about 70 per cent of the healthcare in rural areas was being provided through traditional systems, which were well equipped to provide primary healthcare, the minister pointed out.

The seminar has been organised jointly by the department of industrial development, World Intellectual Property Organisation, department of Indian systems of medicine and homoeopathy and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Assocham Secretary General E N Murthy said intellectual property rights assumed importance in traditional medicines. The methods practised were not documented or scientifically recorded due to lack of institutional framework and the unorganised character of the system, he said.

Murthy said industry could come forward to commercialise in the area of medicine. Industry could take such ventures with the help of research and development to make it commercially viable, he said.

UNI