Word: patent
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...could bottle this stuff, someone would already hold the patent," Kishlansky said...
...hear its critics talk, W.R. Grace & Co., based in Boca Raton, Florida, is nothing less than a den of international pirates. Its crime: patenting a pesticide made from seeds of the Indian neem tree. "Genetic colonialism," thunders the self-proclaimed scientific watchdog Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, who is leading a coalition of 200 scientific, academic and farm organizations from 37 countries that filed a petition last week to have the patent revoked. Not only is Grace's pesticide based on an ancient and widely known extraction process, the coalition claims, but it will force Indian...
Well, yes and no. The truth is that Grace's U.S. patent has no effect in India, whose laws prohibit the patenting of agricultural products; Indian farmers are free to use neem seeds as they always have. Beyond that, Grace's patent may be upheld. The company found a way to treat traditional neem-seed extract to increase shelf life from weeks to years--just the sort of innovation patent laws cover. Even an environmentalist like Walt Reid of the World Resources Institute, based in Washington, admits, "I won't be surprised if the challenge doesn...
...contributing to the local economy. Some critics charge that demand from Grace's plant is the cause of a recent jump in neem-seed prices that has driven some small farmers out of business, but that is difficult to prove. And while India will eventually have to change its patent laws as a member of the World Trade Organization under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, that still wouldn't keep farmers from using neem seeds in traditional ways...
...committee recommends allowing scientists under research agreements a 30-day delay in the public release of their research. The delay would be useful in helping the firm and the scientist decide whether or not to seek a patent for innovative work done under the contract...