Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, designs, info-tech and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. Read, post comments and participate!

The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward and Merpel. E-mail the Kats here!

The team is joined by GuestKats Kevin Bercimuelle-Chamot, Jocelyn Bosse, Alessandro Cerri, Anastasiia Kyrylenko, Marcel Pemsel and Anna Maria Stein.

SpecialKats: Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo (TechieKat), Antonios Baris (Book Review Editor), Rose Hughes (PatKat) and Chijioke Okorie (Africa Correspondent).

InternKats: Asude Sena Moya and Söğüt Atilla.
Home / / PERUVIAN 'PIRACY'

PERUVIAN 'PIRACY'


Inside Bay Area reports that the Peruvian Government is considering legal action against PureWorld Botanicals, a US company which, since 2001, has held the patent for isolating and distributing an active compound derived from maca, a plant believed to have aphrodisiac qualities. The Peruvians are unhappy because Peru’s Quechua Indians have grown the plant for these purposes for hundreds of years. Peru has called this an ‘emblematic case’ of biopiracy, but PureWorld’s chief scientist retorts “After we studied it, put money into the research, (maca) has become a useful commodity”.


The IPKat is somewhat ambivalent on this issue. He can understand the emotional appeal of the Peruvian argument, but at the same time, he doubts whether the Quechua Indians would have the resources to exploit the plant in a way that would bring its benefits to a wider audience.
PERUVIAN 'PIRACY' PERUVIAN 'PIRACY' Reviewed by Anonymous on Sunday, January 07, 2007 Rating: 5

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousSunday, 7 January 2007 at 20:06:00 GMT

    In the referenced source it is noted "The Convention on Biological Diversity produced at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro entitled nations to a share of the profits from substances yielded by their flora and fauna. It was ratified by 188 countries — but not the United States..."

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSunday, 7 January 2007 at 20:19:00 GMT

    There's an issue of principle here: being entitled to a share of the profits is nice. But some people reason that the concession of a share of the profits is not just a paternalistic nod towards the sweet innocents that grow the flora and fauna but a tacit acknowledgement that they are entitled to control it as well.

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )
Powered by Blogger.