GE - Patents/IPR (Grain/Rafi +...........

[GEN lists <genetics@gn.apc.org>]

1: Law to protect native intellectual property Peru
2Indians want patent: Chiefs prepare international law suit against scientist
who registered indigenous knowledge Guyana
3Mexican Bean Biopiracy: US-Mexico Legal Battle Erupts over Patented "Enola"
Bean RAFI
4The Toronto Star ANCIENT INCA  FARMING LORE PROVES WISE BODY:
5 Patents overview, by Florianne Koechlin
See also, Biosafety 16/1/00 for articles on African Sui Generis legislation
call
=====================================================
2
TITLE: Law to protect native intellectual property 
SOURCE: International Press Service, by Abraham Lama 
DATE: January 12, 1999
----------------- archive: <http://www.gene.ch/>http://www.gene.ch/
------------------

Law to protect native intellectual property
LIMA, Jan 12 (IPS) - The Peruvian government is drafting a law to 
protect indigenous rights over their ancestral knowledge in an 
attempt to prevent the history of plundering native wealth from 
repeating itself, as well as controlling the international 
exploitation of Peru's native plants. Indigenous communities will 
be the intellectual owners of genetic resources coming from plant 
species whose curative or nutritional values form part of their 
ancestral knowledge, according to the text of the legal bill.
"Peru is one of the countries with greatest biodiversity in the 
world and must begin utilising the competitive advantage this 
implies," commented Jorge Caillaux, president of the Peruvian 
Environmental Law Society, "but it must protect its natural 
resources as well as the rights of its population." "Researchers 
from transnational pharmaceutical firms travel throughout the 
country gathering information on the native pharmacopeia, they 
search for a species and take it back to their country to isolate 
its components and then produce them commercially," he added.
The history of plundering Peru's native knowledge and technology, 
as old as the pillaging of its natural resources, began with the 
arrival of the Spanish colonisers. Nothing can be done now about 
genetic rights to quinine, extracted from the 'quina' bush, nor 
about the potato, sweet potato, corn, rubber, or tobacco, which 
long ago became part of world knowledge and industrial use. And 
perhaps nothing can be done about more recent natural products, 
such as cat's-claw, a plant whose bark boost the human immune 
system and is, as a result, effective in treating cancer and 
AIDS, and has been patented by laboratories in several countries 
as their own product.
"The story of quinine is illustrative of the plundering of 
indigenous communities' ancestral knowledge: in 1636 an Incan 
healer cured Spanish viceroy's wife of her recurrent malaria 
fevers using bark from the quina bush," said Peruvian doctor 
Fernando Cabieses. Excited about the results, the Count of 
Chichón's wife distributed the "Countess's powder" to the people 
of Lima who suffered tertian fever. Jesuit priests in Peru sent 
the remedy to Europe with the name "Jesuits powder," and soon 
after, cardinal Lugo dispersed the miraculous medication under 
the name "Cardinal's powder." "Rome in that era was the malaria 
capital of the world," affirmed Cabieses, director of the 
National Institute of Traditional Medicine.
"Surrounded by marshes, its 'mal aire' (bad air) led to the 
disease's name 'malaria.' The unhealthy conditions of the Vatican 
meant that the seat of Christianity was nearly abandoned several 
times, after killing various Popes and dozens of cardinals," he 
added. By 1650, the mysterious remedy had become popular at the 
Vatican and awakened interest in other European capitals. In 
1679, Britain's Robert Talbot had quina plants sent from Peru and 
began to market the powder derivative, which in 1820, French 
chemists Pelletier and Caventou perfected, isolating quinine, or 
"chinchonina," named in honour of viceroy Chinchón's wife.
"They honoured the countess, but nobody ever remembered the Incan 
doctors who discovered its curative properties, who genetically 
developed the plant and used it for many years," commented 
Cabieses. The doctor explained that when the new law is approved, 
international pharmaceutical laboratories that currently exploit 
Peru's bio-genetic resources free of charge will have to pay the 
native communities for the right to continue. Among those 
participating in drafting the legal bill are representatives from 
indigenous communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and 
officials from the ministries of Health, Industry, Agriculture 
and from the National Institute in Defence of Intellectual 
Property (Indecopi).
The bill is at the stage of receiving comments and input from 
native communities and business organisations that will be 
involved in overseeing implementation. The draft of the final 
legal text is expected to come under debate in February. "For the 
first time in the world, a government is proposing to establish 
protection for the collective knowledge of indigenous peoples, a 
system to regulate research, production and marketing of genetic 
resources," said Beatriz Boza, of Indecopi. The bill establishes 
regulations for access to genetic resources. If passed, it will 
make Peru the third nation in the world to possess such 
legislation, after the Philippines and Bolivia.
But unlike the Bolivian and Philippine laws on access to genetic 
resources, the Peruvian bill recognises native communities' 
ownership of the knowledge they and their ancestors have 
developed. Brendan Tobin, of the non-governmental Association for 
the Defence of Natural Rights, said that "when the law is 
applied, the communities will be able to grant pharmaceutical 
laboratories, via contracts, the right to use certain plants 
whose therapeutic value they have known about for years." Tobin, 
advisor to the jungle-dwelling Aguaruna community in its 
negotiations with the transnational firm Monsanto, expressed his 
support for the orientation and text of the proposed law.
According to the bill, pharmaceutical companies must earmark 0.5 
percent of their profits from native-origin products to the 
Indigenous People's Development Fund, in addition to the price 
they agree to pay for the right to use each product. "The bill is 
an important step forward because it establishes that money from 
this fund is to be managed by the indigenous people themselves," 
said Tobin, "Finally their rights are being recognised."
===================================================

2

BIO-IPR docserver 
________________________________________________________
TITLE: Indians want patent: Chiefs prepare international law suit against 
scientist who registered indigenous knowledge 
AUTHOR: Luiza Villamea and Max Pinto (photos), with the collaboration of 
João Fábio Caminoto in London 
PUBLICATION: ISTOÉ magazine, No. 1581, São Paulo 
DATE: 19 January 2000 
SOURCE: English translation kindly provided by David Hathaway 
<hathaway@unisys.com.br> 
URL:
<http://www.zaz.com.br/istoe/brasileiros/2000/01/13/000.htm>http://www.zaz.c
om.br/istoe/brasileiros/2000/01/13/000.htm 
________________________________________________________

BIOPIRACY: INDIANS WANT PATENT 
CHIEFS PREPARE INTERNATIONAL LAW SUIT AGAINST SCIENTIST WHO 
REGISTERED INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
Luiza Villamea and Max Pinto (photos)
Sand Creek, Guyana
In her village in a far corner of Guyana known as Palm Grove, the Wapishana 
Indian Evelyn Gomes keeps a nut called tipir for health emergencies. 
According to her people's tradition, the grated tipir stops hemorrhages and 
prevents infections, in addition to being a contraceptive. "The tipir is 
also abortive. I learned its use from my mother, who learned from her 
mother," says Evelyn. On the other side of the border with Brazil, the 
Wapishana Leandro de Castro Pereira holds to the knowledge of his ancestors 
as he fishes with neither arrow or net. A resident of the Malacacheta maloca 
(or village), near Boa Vista (capital city of Roraima), Leandro macerates 
the leaves of a plant called cunani, forms it into a little pie and throws 
it into the water. "The fishes go crazy. They start to jump, and after a 
while, they die," he says. "Then, you just catch them and eat them, like our 
forebears. The cunani doesn't pollute the water or affect the taste of the 
fish."
Following litigation between Brazil and Great Britain -- by which Guyana was 
once colonized -- the Wapishana were divided by an arbitrary border in 1904. 
Because of tipir and cunani, now they are more united than ever, as they 
prepare for a battle in international courts. The Wapishanas are challenging 
British chemist Conrad Gorinsky, who registered the property of those plants 
as his findings, in European and United States patent offices. The problem 
is that, before isolating the plants components, Gorinsky spent long periods 
of time among the Wapishanas, doing research precisely on medicinal plants. 
"For many days and nights I was his guide in the jungle," recalls the 
Wapishana Ashpur Spencer, 83 years old.
A health agent in Sand Creek, a village that is home to 800 Wapishanas, 
Louise Randhamil remembers Gorinsky well. "He used to talk about sharing the 
outcome of his research projects. What he has done is absurd, because Picky 
knows how much we need a refrigerator and solar energy to store the 
vaccines," she complains, referring to the scientist's sister, who also used 
to visit the region. Sand Creek's chief, Eugene Andrew, is not interested in 
asking for a specific donation from the scientist. He demands justice. He 
believes that it is fundamental to demonstrate that Gorinsky would not have 
isolated the plant's components or registered their properties without the 
help of his people. "He took the knowledge of our ancestors and wants to 
sell it to the industries as if he were the discoverer."
Andrew hosted a delegation of four Brazilian Wapishana chiefs who, in a 
recent meeting, had called on their people to bring suit against Gorinsky's 
patents. "We are a united people and need to recover the memory and the 
knowledge of the elders," Norberto Cruz da Silva, the delegation leader, 
affirmed. "The difficulties we have to overcome just to meet together are 
nothing compared to what lies ahead," he said, referring to the difficult 
access to the village, which is reached by crossing the wide and wild 
Rupununi river, in a region with no bridges. They communicate in their own 
language, though the residents in Brazil also speak Portuguese, and those 
who live in Guyana speak English. Even the English-speaking Wapishanas were 
taken aback as they read copies of the patents. The wording was obviously 
inaccessible to these lay readers.
The first patent granted to the scientist covers the Greenheart tree (Ocotea 
rodiaei), which produces tipir. According to his description, the active 
ingredient of the plant is an efficient antipyretic, capable of preventing 
come-back cases of diseases such as malaria, and also useful in treating 
tumors and even the AIDS virus. The substance was baptized by Gorinsky as 
rupununine, a reference to the region's main river. The other active 
ingredient registered by the chemist, polyacetylene, was obtained from the 
Cunani bush (Clibadium sylvestre). It is prescribed as a powerful stimulant 
of the central nervous system, as a neuromuscular agent capable of reverting 
cases of heart blockage.
"Every single Wapishana needs to know what is happening," says Tony James, 
coordinator of the Amerindian People's Association (APA), in Georgetown, 
Guyana's Capital. There are about 16 thousand Wapishanas, 10 thousand of 
whom live in Guyana. "Many started pushing for a law suit after the 
ayahuasca case," he added, referring to a medicinal drink commonly used by 
Amazonian peoples. At the request of indigenous peoples from Ecuador and 
Colombia, the United States Patents Office last November revoked the 
ayahuasca patent, which had been granted to an American businessman.
Together with the Brazilian chiefs who went to Guyana, Tony James was one of 
the signatories of a petition sent by the Wapishanas to Senator Marina Silva 
(PT-Acre), in which they asked her to help them challenge the patents on 
rupununines and polyacetylenes. Under the Convention on Biological 
Diversity, signed in 1992 by 144 Countries in Rio de Janeiro, when products 
are obtained from traditional knowledge, their origin must be recognized, 
and part of the royalties should be reserved for the community which holds 
the information. Since then, the Philippines, Costa Rica and the countries 
of the Andean Pact -- Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela -- have 
adopted laws to control access to genetic resources. In Brazil, Senator 
Marina Silva is the author of a bill that regulates the matter. "We are an 
auxiliary force, though we will collaborate as much as we can to mobilize 
institutional support," Marina assures.
At least one institution has already responded to this appeal: the Brazilian 
Bar Association (OAB), represented in Sand Creek by lawyer Gisela de 
Alencar, an environmental law specialist. "This is a model case, because 
Gorinsky has stated in the text of both patents that the Wapishanas used 
those plants," Gisela affirms. Informed by ISTOÉ about the suit to be filed, 
Gorinsky, 63, insisted that rupununines and polyacetylenes are his 
discoveries. "I have dedicated my life to this work. I have registered 
specific components that had not been decoded. I have made all the 
intellectual effort, and spent thousands of dollars from my own pocket. 
Would the Indians ever invest in this?," reacted the scientist, highlighting 
that the substances have not yet been marketed. "But no one can take a 
patent away from the inventor. We can't talk about how to share the pie if 
there's no pie," adds Gorinsky, the son of a Polish father who settled in 
Guyana after meeting his mother, the daughter of Atorai Indians.
All the countries in which Gorinsky has taken out patents are signatories to 
the Biodiversity Convention except for the United States, which has not yet 
ratified the accord. Because of this, the law suit might begin in Europe, 
through Portugal, due to its cooperation treaties with Brazil, to be judged 
afterwards by the Court of Luxembourg, the European forum responsible for 
such issues.
In February, the Wapishanas will meet in Boa Vista to discuss strategies for 
action, at the General Assembly of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR). 
"We will alert the other peoples about the need to preserve their 
knowledge," says Chief Norberto. Meanwhile, Chief Andrew has revoked some 
ancient rules of hospitality. The entry of researchers is forbidden in Sand 
Creek.
Joao Fabio Caminoto contributed from London.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION: David Hathaway

<> <> <> <> <> <>
========================================================
3
BIO-IPR docserver 
________________________________________________________
TITLE: Mexican Bean Biopiracy: US-Mexico Legal Battle Erupts over Patented 
"Enola" Bean 
AUTHOR: Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) 
PUBLICATION: Geno-Types 
DATE: 17 January 2000 
URL: <http://www.rafi.org/>http://www.rafi.org 
NOTE: Please visit RAFI's website for the full and referenced version of 
this article, and to subscribe to their listserver. 
________________________________________________________

MEXICAN BEAN BIOPIRACY: 
US-MEXICO LEGAL BATTLE ERUPTS OVER PATENTED "ENOLA" BEAN 
PLANT BREEDERS' WRONGS CONTINUES…

RAFI - Geno-Types - 17 January 2000
Summary: A US-based company, POD-NERS, L.L.C, is suing Mexican bean 
exporters, charging that the Mexican beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) they are 
selling in the US infringe POD-NERS' US patent on a yellow-colored bean 
variety. It's not surprising that the Mexican beans are strikingly similar 
to POD-NER's patented bean. That's because POD-NERS proprietary bean, 
"Enola" originates from the highly popular "Azufrado" or "Mayocoba" bean 
seeds the company's president purchased in Mexico in 1994. The Mexican 
yellow beans have been grown in Mexico for centuries, developed by 
generations of Mexican farmers and more recently by Mexican plant breeders. 
Last year RAFI released a report, Plant Breeders' Wrongs, which documents 
147 suspected cases of institutional biopiracy. In RAFI's opinion, the 
Enola bean patent is a textbook case of biopiracy, and it confirms -- once 
again -- that the plant intellectual property system is predatory on the 
rights of indigenous peoples and farming communities.
Background
In 1994, Larry Proctor, the owner of a small seed company and president of 
POD-NERS, L.L.C., bought a bag of commercial bean seeds in Sonora, Mexico 
and took them back to the US. He picked out the yellow-colored beans, 
planted them and allowed them to self-pollinate. Proctor selected yellow 
seeds for several generations until he got what he describes as a "uniform 
and stable population" of yellow bean seeds. Proctor applied for a US patent 
on November 15, 1996, barely two years after he purchased the yellow beans 
in Mexico.
o On April 13, 1999 Larry Proctor won US patent no. 5,894,079 on the "Enola" 
bean variety. The patent claims exclusive monopoly on any Phaseolus vulgaris 
(dry bean) having a seed color of a particular shade of yellow. POD-NERS 
claims that it is illegal for anyone to buy, sell, offer for sale, make, use 
for any purpose including dry edible or propagation, or import yellow 
Phaseolus vulgaris of that description. (To be granted a patent, the 
inventor must meet three standard criteria. The invention must be new, 
useful and non-obvious. )
o On May 28, 1999 Larry Proctor won a US Plant Variety Protection 
Certificate (No. 9700027) on the Enola bean variety. The PVP certificate 
states that the Enola dry bean variety "has distinctly colored seed which is 
unlike any dry bean currently being produced in the United States…" (To 
receive plant variety protection in the US, a variety must be new, stable, 
uniform and distinct.)
In late 1999, armed with a US patent and a breeders' right certificate 
(double IP protection), Proctor brought legal suit against two companies 
that sell Mexican beans in the US, charging that they infringe his patent 
monopoly. Proctor has initiated legal suits against two companies that buy 
yellow beans from Mexican farmers and sell them in the US: Tutuli Produce 
(Nogales, Arizona, US) and Productos Verde Valle (Guadalajara, Jalisco, 
Mexico). Rebecca Gilliland, President of Tutuli Produce, explains, "In the 
beginning, I thought it was a joke. How could he [Proctor] invent something 
that Mexicans have been growing for centuries?" Tutuli Produce is a major 
buyer of two yellow bean varieties, "Peruano" and "Mayocoba" produced by an 
association of Mexican farmers, the Asociacion de Agricultores de Rio Fuerte.
POD-NERS is demanding royalties of six cents per pound on the yellow beans 
entering the US from Mexico. According to Gilliland, because of the patent 
infringement charges, US customs officials are now inspecting Mexican beans 
at the US-Mexico border, taking samples from every shipment, at additional 
cost to her company. And because of the lawsuit, Gilliland says her company 
is already losing customers -- which are important markets for Mexican 
farmers.
Mexico Defends its Bean Heritage
Beans are the principal source of vegetable protein consumed by Mexicans, 
and one of Mexico's basic food staples. Yellow "Azufrado" beans are 
especially popular in the Northwest region of Mexico where 98% of surveyed 
Mexicans eat them.
Outraged by the appropriation of Mexican germplasm and legal attempts to 
block Mexican bean exports to the US, the Mexican government announced in 
early January that it will challenge the US patent on the "Enola" bean 
variety. "We will do everything necessary, anything it takes, because the 
defense of our beans is a matter of national interest," declared Jose 
Antonio Mendoza Zazueta, under-secretary of Mexican rural development. The 
patent challenge will cost at least US$200,000 in legal fees.
Mexico's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock 
(INIFAP) recently conducted a DNA analysis of POD-NERS' patented bean. The 
results indicate that the Enola variety is genetically identical to Mexico's 
"Azufrado" bean.
Nothing New
Larry Proctor, the "inventor" of the Enola variety, readily admits that his 
Enola bean is of Mexican origin. On his application to the PVP office, 
Proctor wrote, "The yellow bean, 'Enola' variety is most likely a landrace 
from the azufrado-type varieties." In his patent application, Proctor 
explains that he bought a bag of commercial beans in Mexico, planted them in 
Colorado (US), and did several years of selection. But Proctor claims that 
the Enola variety he developed is unique because of its distinctive yellow 
color and also because it was not grown previously in the US.
Plant breeding experts disagree. Professor James Kelly, a bean breeder at 
Michigan State University and President of the Bean Improvement Cooperative, 
believes that the Enola patent is "inappropriate, unjust and is not based on 
the scientific evidence or facts."
Kelly writes: "This yellow color described in the patent is typical of the 
yellow beans that have been grown for centuries in Mexico. The yellow beans 
in Mexico are widely grown and known under the names of Mayocoba, Azufrado 
or Sulfur, Peruano, Canaria and Canario, names that are all suggestive of 
the yellow color."
There is ample documentation in genebank databases that bean varieties 
commonly known as Azufrado, Canario and Peruano are farmers' varieties 
collected in Mexico. RAFI's initial database search reveals that scores of 
Mexican bean varieties identified by those names are held by the 
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Cali, Colombia), and 
virtually all of them are designated "in-trust" materials. Under the terms 
of the 1994 agreement between the Consultative Group on International 
Agricultural Research and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, "in 
trust" germplasm is maintained in the public domain and is not allowed to be 
included in any intellectual property claim.
Professor James Kelly dismisses the implication that the patented yellow 
color bean was not known, grown or recognized in the US prior to 1994. Kelly 
provides documented evidence that yellow beans (of Mexican origin) similar 
to Enola were grown and consumed in the US as far back as the 1930s.
Kelly also questions the technical validity of the breeding and selection 
work described in the Enola patent:
"On a scientific level, I would challenge the procedure they used as not 
being unique since beans are highly self-pollinating and they (inventors) 
simply grew pure homozygous seed of yellow beans from a seed mixture which 
self pollinated to reproduce itself. Nothing unique was invented, and this 
is a routine procedure used by bean breeders to maintain purity of genetic 
stocks and varieties. The inventors state 'a segregating population of 
plants resulted.' This is incorrect. They simply observed different plant 
and seed types since they planted a mixture of different beans that 
exhibited morphological, phenological and seed color differences. This is 
not a segregating population which must result from a cross pollination. 
Simply growing and selfing a specific seed color type hardly implies novelty 
or invention."
"All he [Proctor] did," Kelly told RAFI, "was multiply something that 
already existed. It's nothing unique in any sense of the word. To patent a 
color is absolute heresy."
The Bottom Line: RAFI Commentary
The Enola bean patent is technically and morally unacceptable. It is tragic 
that Mexico is now forced to devote scarce financial resources to challenge 
a patent that should never have been granted. It's difficult to decide who 
is more at fault: Is it the patent owner who claims that Mexican beans are 
infringing his US monopoly patent on seeds of Mexican origin? Or is it the 
US patent examiners who determined that Proctor was eligible to win an 
exclusive monopoly patent?
It is tempting to dismiss the Enola bean patent as an "aberration", as 
nothing more than an absurdly ridiculous patent. Unfortunately, the patent 
demonstrates more than the fallibility of a single patent examiner. Last 
year RAFI released a report, "Plant Breeders' Wrongs" which documents 147 
suspected cases of institutional biopiracy. Industry and Plant Breeders' 
Rights officials from Canberra to Geneva dismissed the charges, asserting 
that plant intellectual property abuses are remote and isolated cases.. The 
reality is that the Enola patent is only the most recent example of a long 
line of abuses -- of "systemic biopiracy." Mexican beans, South Asian 
basmati, Bolivian quinoa, Amazonian ayahuasca, Indian chickpeas -- all have 
been subject to intellectual property claims that are predatory on the 
knowledge and genetic resources of indigenous peoples and farming communities.
The Enola controversy starkly illustrates the danger of life patenting and 
the power of exclusive monopoly patents to block agricultural imports, to 
disrupt or destroy export markets for Third World farmers, and to legally 
appropriate staple food crops or sacred medicinal plants that represent the 
cultural heritage of millennia. Hopefully, the Enola patent will be easily 
challenged and promptly abandoned. But next time, it may not be so simple. 
The patent owner could be a corporate powerhouse with deeper pockets and a 
fleet of lawyers.
Mexico and other nations of the South should bear in mind that the Enola 
patent is the product of precisely the same intellectual property regime 
that the US government aggressively promotes as a model for the rest of the 
world, through bilateral and multilateral channels. At the World Trade 
Organization, the US consistently pushes for stronger IP protection for 
plant varieties under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPs) 
agreement. It is a tragic irony if Mexico and other governments react to 
biopiracy by rushing to patent and PBR every plant variety in sight. In 
doing so, they will put in place the very same predatory IP regimes that 
undercut the rights of farmers to save seeds, promote genetic uniformity, 
and threaten food security.
Action Needed
o US Patent 5,894,079 should be legally challenged and revoked.
o US Patent 5,894,079 and US PVP # 9700027 may involve "in trust" germplasm. 
Under the terms of the 1994 agreement between the Consultative Group on 
International Agricultural Research and the UN Food and Agriculture 
Organization, "in trust" germplasm is maintained in the public domain and is 
not allowed to be included in any intellectual property claim. To insure the 
integrity of designated germplasm, FAO and CGIAR should take immediate steps 
to investigate, and, if necessary, to offer legal and financial support to 
defend the in-trust germplasm.
o The long-overdue review of WTO TRIPs Article 27.3(b) is ultimately the 
most important forum for halting predatory practices. Governments should 
rescind the current requirement under Article 27.3(b) to permit intellectual 
property protection for plants and microorganisms on the grounds that WIPO 
and UPOV regimes are predatory upon the knowledge of farming communities and 
indigenous peoples and upon the sovereignty of states over their living 
resources.
o Governments, civil society organizations and other stakeholders convening 
at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research in Dresden in May should 
urgently review the impact of plant intellectual property on plant breeding 
and innovation, farming communities and biological diversity.

For further information, please contact:
Hope Shand, Research Director 
RAFI 
118 E. Main St., Rm. 211 
Carrboro, NC 27510 USA 
Tel: (1-919) 960-5223 
Fax: (1-919) 960-5224 
Email: hope@rafi.org 
Web: <http://www.rafi.org/>http://www.rafi.org

====================================================
4
The Toronto Star January 16, 2000, Sunday, Edition 1 
> SECTION: BOD LENGTH: 714 words HEADLINE: ANCIENT INCA 
> FARMING LORE PROVES WISE BODY: In the Jan. 7 issue of 
> Science, Paul Allan Cox of the National Tropical Botanical 
> Garden in Hawaii voices a plea for the preservation of 
> tribal knowledge. While he likely wasn't aware of it, a 
> recent discovery of such knowledge makes his plea even more 
> pressing. As a botanist, Cox has seen innumerable examples 
> of the value of traditional, unwritten knowledge of plants. 
> He cites the case of a Samoan woman who, when asked, ''Do 
> you know anything about herbal medicine?'' replied, ''I 
> know a little'' and then proceeded to give Cox details of 
> 121 herbal remedies she could make from 90 different 
> species of flowering plants and ferns. Many of those are as 
> yet untested, but at least one has been shown to be an 
> active anti-viral compound called prostratin. The Samoan 
> herbalist had recommended it for the treatment of hepatitis. 
> Cox points out that the world-wide destruction of forests 
> that contain such plants coupled with the simultaneous loss 
> of the languages that encode the knowledge of how to use 
> them is an ongoing disaster. But did Cox cast his net wide 
> enough? At about the same time as his essay appeared, 
> scientists from the University of California at Davis 
> published their account of a unique piece of indigenous 
> knowledge. Benjamin Orlove and his colleagues focused on 
> centuries-old farming practices in the Andes mountains in 
> what is now Peru and Bolivia. There, farmers gather on June 
> 24 - close to their winter solstice - to look at the 
> constellation called the Pleiades, also known as the Seven 
> Sisters. 
> 
> The Pleiades is an unmistakable bright cluster of stars. 
> But the Andean farmers don't just glance at the 
> Pleiades&semi; they scrutinize it. The brighter the 
> appearance of the Pleiades, the better the indications for 
> the potato crop to be planted several months later. If the 
> Pleiades shine brightly, the farmers will put their 
> potatoes in early, confident that the rains will come. If 
> the Pleiades appear dull or faint, planting is delayed in 
> anticipation of a drought followed by unusually late rains. 
> Orlove and his team have discovered the link between these 
> two seemingly disparate phenomena, the appearance of stars 
> in June and the likelihood of rain in October. But they 
> needed late 20th century technology to do it. The 
> International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project maps cloud 
> cover over the Andes. These satellite data reveal the 
> occasional presence of what are called ''sub-visual'' 
> clouds, clouds so high and thin they can't be seen 
> directly. However, invisible from Earth as they are, these 
> clouds will dim the appearance of the stars. Moreover, such 
> high-altitude clouds are more common in years with an El 
> Nino, the disruption of the world's weather originating in 
> the south Pacific. And guess what? Rainfall in the Andes is 
> reduced and delayed in El Nino years. So the satellite data 
> support the farmers' practice of looking at the Pleiades in 
> June. Not that they needed support&semi; Orlove figures 
> they are able to predict drought accurately (and adjust 
> their planting accordingly) close to 75 per cent of the 
> time. Any forecaster would be happy with that sort of 
> accuracy over a span of several months. Spanish historical 
> records show that the Incas were paying close attention to 
> the Pleiades 450 years ago, but farmers were likely 
> forecasting this way centuries before that. And there's 
> nothing mystical about the practice. Orlove told me that the 
> farmers expect the universe to unfold in a regular, 
> predictable way. Looking at the stars is just one way of 
> ascertaining what sort of regularity to expect this year. 
> 
> So here is a kind of indigenous knowledge that would have 
> seemed illogical, if not absurd. Bright stars in June 
> predicting rain in October? But it works, and it goes 
> beyond Cox's argument for the preservation of traditional 
> knowledge of medicines. This represents a deep 
> understanding of how the world works&semi; of how 
> atmosphere, agriculture and time work together in ways that 
> can - at least from the practical point of view - be 
> understood. At a time when we are obsessed with the 
> unfolding of the future, we would be extra foolish to 
> neglect this kind of knowledge from the past. Jay Ingram 
> hosts the TV program @discovery.ca on the Discovery 
> Channel
===========================================================
5
WTO conference in Seattle and TRIPS 
Patents on life should have been an important issue at the WTO-conference 
in Seattle: In previous meetings the US and Europe insisted that 
corporations should be allowed to patent all plants and animals. The "Like 
Minded Group" however, consisting of all African countries, as well as 
India, Pakistan, Brasil, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay, insisted that living 
beings cannot be patented . Furthermore, they argued that vital issues have 
to be dealt with before a new implementation of TRIPS (WTO rules on patents 
and other intellectual property rights), such as the issue of "biopiracy" 
(corporations patenting the traditional herbal medicins and genetic 
ressources) or the protection of oral, informal and collective inventions. 
The"Like Minded Group" demanded a five-year delay in implementation of 
TRIPS while these changes are effected. 
The patent-issue (as so many others) was not dealt with in Seattle; the WTO 
General Council wants to decide “early 2000" how to proceed. 
(Infos: BIO-IPR listserver by GRAIN. To subscibe: 
bio-ipr@request@cuenet.com. Website GRAIN: www.grain.org)
European Patent Office (EPO) pays obeisance to Industry 
The Enlarged Board of the EPO in Munich decided on December 20th, that 
plants and animals are patentable, as long as not a specific plant or 
animal variety is claimed. 
Background: What sounds rather harmless at first view, seems to be the end 
of controversial legal struggle within the EPO - ethics against 
industry-interests - and industry won. In summer 1999 the Administrative 
Council prepared the ground for this decision (Mail-out 69). Art 53 b of 
the European Patent Convention says: “Plant or animal varieties" cannot be 
patented. The Biotech-Companies tried to circumvent this ban by formulating 
extremely broad claims: The famous oncomouse-patent claims the 
patent-protection for all transgenic "non-human mammals" (that is, not only 
transgenic mice, but also transgenic giraffes, dogs or apes..). The 
Monsanto patent on RR-soya not only covers soya, but also "wheat,rice, 
cotton,ananas, grape...."(claim 28, patent no. EP 546 090). The 
oncomouse-trial ended 1996 in chaos and with no decision (until today): 
This was one of the main-issues (the other one was, of course, that it 
turned out to be impossible to legally force animals into being patentable 
objects.) The Technical Board of the EPO then once argued (in the famous 
"Novartis"-case), that this practise contradicts the Patent Convention in a 
deep way: "You cannot ban bigamy and allow polygamy". The recent 180-degree 
turn of the Enlarged Board perhaps also has to be seen in the light that 
the EPO is a private body, living from patent-application-fees, coming 
mainly from industry. 
(Infos: GENET-news, 21/12/99)
Council of Europe opposes patents on plants and animals 
On Sept. 22, 1999, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 
consented unanimously to a proposition of MEP Wolfgang Wodarg (German 
Social Democrat): The Assembly rejected the patenting of plants, animals 
and human parts. The Assembly advocated instead new procedures that are 
transparent for all concerned and a biotechnological innovation protection 
system that will promote lasting world food security. 
(Infos: GENET-news, 22.10.1999)
Monsanto sued of violating anti-trust-law 
On Dec. 14, 1999 some of the most prominent US antitrust lawyers filed a 
class-action lawsuit against Monsanto "and other biotech companies named as 
co-conspirators". They are accused * of rushing transgenic seeds to the 
marketplace without properly testing them for safety, * of violating 
antitrust law, because their patented genes and seed had given them too 
much control over how staple crops are used and * of forming an 
international cartel that conspired to control the world's market in maize 
and soybean seeds. The lawsuit was filed in behalf of 6 farmers and is 
supported by the Foundation on Economic Trends (Jeremy Rifkin) and 
National Family Farm Association. 
(Infos: New York Times,15/12, 1999; BBC News Service, 14/12/99)
"Gene patents hit research" 
The Guardian (UK) wrote on 15/12/99: "Vital medical research aimed at 
developing screening methods and cures for congenital diseases is being 
stifled by the rush to patent human genes and the corporate use of those 
patents to maximise profits. (...) A poll of American laboratory directors 
found that a quarter of them had received letters from lawyers acting for 
biotechnology companies ordering them to stop carrying out clinical tests 
designed to spot early warning signs for Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer 
and an array of other disorders.(...) So great is the perceived threat to 
medical research that a group of American doctors and scientists have 
issued a protest saying: "The use of patents or exorbitant licensing fees 
to prevent physicians and clinical laboratories from performing genetic 
tests limits access to medical care, jeopardises the quality of medical 
care, and unreasonably raises its cost."(..) "I've been at conferences 
where we have been addressed by patent lawyers and told to stop showing our 
colleagues our notebooks, or think twice about submitting an abstract at a 
meeting," said Jonathan King, a genetic researcher at the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology. "It's a common experience at scientific meetings 
for people to withhold information because they have a patent pending. 
Progress is being slowed down."(...)"
Short news: 
* Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, the proprietor of the small 
company RiceTecs and thus of the outrageous patent on Basmati Rice Patent 
(No US 5,663,484), refused to step back from this patent. RAFI, the "Berne 
Declaration" (CH) and the Gene Campaign (India) will continue their 
campaign 
(infos: www.rafi.org or www.evb.ch or genecamp@vsnl.com) 
* The U.S. Patent office canceled the patent on the sacred "Ayahuasca" 
plant. The plant is native in the Amazonian rainforest and is widely used 
in sacred religious and healing ceremonies. The worldwide campaign against 
this patent finally was successful (info: BIO-IPR-listserver by GRAIN, see 
above). 
* Monsanto stepped back from the "Terminator"patent. Meanwhile , many more 
patents on closely related technologies are coming up.



signature:
Genetic Engineering Network 
Requests for information as well as general enquiries should be sent to the 
GEN office - 
<info@genetix.freeserve.co.uk> 
To subscribe or send information for submission to the 
GEN - INFO 4 ACTION - email lists only- contact:
<genetics@gn.apc.org>
email archived as info4action -
<<http://www.gene.ch/info4action.html>http://www.gene.ch/info4action.html>