12

PIRACY BY PATENT
The Case of the Neem Tree

Vandana Shiva and Radha Holla-Bhar

Vandana Shiva is a physicist and philosopher of science.She is also an indefati-

gable activist] having played a key role in thefamous Chipko movement to save
the Himalayan forests. She is now director of the ResearchFoundation for Sci-
ence, Technology and Natural ResourcePolicy in Dehradun] India] and is the
scienceand environment adviser of the Third World Network. Her books in-
clude MonOC:ulture of the Mind (1993)] Biotechnology and the Environ-
ment ( 1993)] and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development
( 1989). In 1993] Shiva was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.
Radha Holla-Bhar is a researcherat the ResearchFoundation for Science,
Technology and Natural Resource Policy. One of the many campaigns of this
institute is to opposepatenting of life forms] particularly the wild plants and
crops to which rural people of India have always had free accessand that may
now only be available to those who can afford to pay royalties to such compa-
nies as Cargill and ~ R. Grace.

U NTIL VERY recently in India, biodiversity was something held en-

tirely in common by local communities of people. Resources and
knowledge about forest or agricultural properties were freely shared.
Whether it was seeds of the farm or plants of the forest, all were clearly
understood to be part of the cultural, spiritual, and biological commons.
The idea that the commons could be divided up, purchased, and
owned by individuals or companies for their own commercial purposes
was unknown to Indian farmers until the early 19605,when certain inter-
 Piracy by Patent: The Caseof the Neem Tree 147

national conventions established "plant breeder's rights." These new

"rights" allowed commercial plant breeders to take traditional indigenous
varieties of seed, for example, "improve" them (often by very minor alter-
ations of genetic structure), and then patent and commercialize them,
eventually selling back the patented seeds to the communities that first
provided them freely.
The new rules were based on the new idea that biodiversity, by now
existing mainly in the countries of the South, should be the "common her-
itage" of all humanity. This globalization of the South's biodiversity com-
mons was a windfall for northern corporations, which began a race to
patent and privatize as much of this natural commons as possible, without
ever paying royalties to the original breeders and farmers -the local com-
munities and indigenous people- who gathered all the knowledge about
them. By the 197°s, strong protests were developing.
As G. S. Nijar and Chee Yoke Ling wrote in Third World Resurgence
(January 1992), "Developing countries objected to the inherent unfairness
in having to give their genetic resource materials freely when these were
being used for developing biological materials which were then subject to
property rights. The common heritage of mankind, taken freely from the
South, was now returned as a commodity at a price."
However, the industrialized northern countries argued that the tech-
nologically altered materials were not part of the common heritage ofhu-
mankind, thus creating a huge double standard. They argued that the
materials, created and developed from generations of innovation in the
South by farmers, were common heritage, thus allowing northern corpo-
rations free access, but the benefits derived from this common heritage
were corporate property and should be protected by patent.
The issue came to cris~s during the GATT negotiations, when the
United States and other northern countries imposed their new rules of
Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which forced all
countries to honor the northern interpretation of patent rights. 'The north-
ern countries argued that when southern farmers' attempted to retain free
use of their own seeds,developed by them over thousands of years, it was
a form of piracy, but the pirate's hat clearly belongs on the other head.
For example, the United States argues that its corporations lose $202
million a year in royalty payments for agricultural chemicals and $2.5
billion in pharmaceuticals from Third World countries such as India
that have not recognized patents for intellectual property. But an analysis
by the Rural Advancement Fund International (RAFI) of Canada has
shown that if the long history of plant-breeding work of indigenous
148 VAND.NA SHIVA AND RADHA HOLLA-BHAR

Third World farmers over thousands of years were properly taken into
account, along with the discovery and care of plants with pharmaceutical
properties, the piracy accusation would be sharply reversed. The United
States would rightfully owe the Third World's farmers S3O2million an-
nually for royalties on farmers' seeds that the United States now uses and
$5.1 billion for pharmaceuticals now in U.S. drug stores.
Indian farmers understand the issue exquisitely well. They staged re-
peated mass demonstrations against the GATT Uruguay Round agree-
ment. In 1993, about a half-million farmers converged upon Bangalore to
voice their fears about the GATT legislation, fully aware of the direct
threat that it posed to their livelihoods.
In particular, many of them began to understand that the new GATT
institutionalizes the international "harmonization" of property rights leg-
islation and global monopoly ownership of life forms along the lines of
U.S. law.
Before GATT, Indian law excluded the private ownership of patent
rights and biological materials. This helped ensure that entitlements to
food and nutrition remained as broad-based as possible. But with GATT,
there is tremendous pressur~ to change. The inclusion of these living re-
sources in frameworks of private ownership of patents will threaten our
rights to survival as a country and as a people. Sovereignty in the matter of
patent law is essential because it is a matter of survival, especially for the
economically weaker sections of our society that have no purchasing
power and can be protected only through the public interest.

THEFT OF THE NEEM TREE

As part of their demonstration, thousands of the protesting Indian farm-
ers carried twigs or branches cut from the neem tree, abundantly found
throughout the drier areas of India.
Of all the plants that have proved useful to humanity, a few are distin-
guished by astonishing versatility. The coconut palm is one; bamboo is an-
other. In the more arid areas of India, this distinction is held by a hardy,
fast-growing evergreen of up to 20 meters in height-Azadirachta indica,
commonly known as the neem tree.
The neem's many virtues are to a large degree attributable to its chem-
ical constituents. From its roots to its spreading crown, the tree contains a
number of potent compounds, particularly a chemical noted for its astrin-
gency that makes it useful in many fields:
 Piracy by Patent: The Caseof the Net'm Tree 149

Medicine. Neem is mentioned in many ancient texts, and traditional

Indian medical authorities place it at the pinnacle of their pharma-
copoeia. The bark, leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit pulp are used to
treat a wide range of diseases and complaints, from leprosy and dia-
betes to ulcers, skin disorders, and constipation.

Toiletries. Neem twigs are used by millions of Indians as an antiseptic

tooth brush. Its oil is used in the preparation of toothpaste and soap.

Contraception. Neem oil is known to be a potent spermicide and is con-

sidered to be 100 percent effective when applied intravaginally before
intercourse. Intriguingly, it is also taken internally by ascetics who
wish to abate their sexual desire.

Timber .Besides being hard and fast-growing, its chemical resistance to

termites makes neem a useful construction material.

.Fuel. Neem oil is used as lamp oil, while the fruit pulp is useful in the
production of methane.

Agriculture. The Upavanavinod, an ancient Sanskrit treatise dealing

with forestry and agriculture, cites neem as a cure for ailing soils,
plants, and livestock. Neem cake, the residue from the seeds after oil
extraction, is fed to livestock and poultry, while its leaves increase soil
fertility. Most importantly, neem is a potent insecticide~ effective
against locusts, brown plant-hoppers, nematodes, mosquito larvae,
Colorado beetles, and boll weevils.

These properties, and others, known to Indians for millennia, have

given the tree its Sanskrit name, sarva raga nivarini, "the curer of all ail-
ments... or, in the MuslimJradition, shajar-e-mubarak, "the blessed tree."
Access to its various products has been free or cheap: there are s<:>me
four-
teen million neem trees in India, and the age-old village techniques for
extracting the seed oil and pesticidal emulsions do not require expensive
equipment. A large number of different medicinal compounds based
upon the neem are commonly available.
Since 1925, there has been considerable research into the properties of
neem carried out by over twenty Indian scientific institutes ranging from
the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and the Malaria Research Cen-
ter to the Tata Energy Research Institute and the Khadi and Village In-
dustries Commission (KVIC). Much of this research was fostered by
Gandhian movements, such as the Boycott of Foreign Goods movement,
which encouraged the development and manufacture of local Indian
:5° VANDANA SHIVA AND RADHAHOLLA-BHAR

products, including pesticides, medicines, and cosmetics. These have

come on the market in recent years, some of them produced in the small-
scale sector under Indian law. Until recently, such agricultural and medi-
cinal products were not patentable.

WeRe GRACE DISCOVERS NEEM

For centuries, the Western world ignored the neem tree and its proper-
ties. The practices of Indian peasants and doctors were not deemed wor-
thy of attention by the majority of British, French, and Portuguese
colonists. In the last few years, however, growing opposition to chemical
products in the West, in particular to pesticides, has led to a sudden new
interest in the pharmaceutical properties of neem.
In 1971, U.S. timber importer Robert Larson observed the tree's use-
fulness in India and began importing neem seed to his company head-
quarters in Wisconsin. Over the next decade, he conducted safety and
performance tests upon a pesticidal neem extract called Margosan-O and
in 1985 received clearance for the product from the u.s. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). Three years later, he sold the patent for the
product to the multinational chemical corporation, W. R. Grace and Co.
Since 1985, over a dozen U.S. patents have been taken out by U.S. and
Japanese firms on formulae for stable neem-based solutions and emul-
sions and even for a neem-based toothpaste. At least four of these are
owned by W. R. Grace; three are owned by another U.S. company, the
Native Plant Institute; and two by the JapaneseTerumo Corporation.
Having garnered their patents and with the prospect of a license from
the EPA, Grace set about manufacturing and commercializing the prod-
uct by establishing a base in India. The company approached several In-
dian manufacturers with proposals to buy up their technology or convince
them to stop producing their value-added pharmaceutical products and
instead to supply Grace with raw material.
In many cases,Grace met with a rebuff. M. N. Sukhatme, director of
Herringer Bright Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., which manufactures the neem-
based insecticide Indiara, was put under pressure by Grace to sell the
technology for a storage-stable neem extract that does not require heating
or any chemical change. Sukhatme refused their offers, stating, "I am not
interested to commercialize the product," (M. N. Sukhatme, personal
communication).
But Grace eventually managed to arrange a joint venture with a firm
called P. J. Margot Pvt. Ltd. The companies are now setting up a plant in
 Piracy by Patent: The Caseof the Neem Tree 151

India that will process neem seed for export to the United States. Initially,
the plant will process 20 tons of seed per day. They are also setting up a
network of neem seed suppliers, to ensure a constant supply of seed and a
reliable price.
Grace is likely to be followed by other patent-holding companies. A
Scienct' magazine article ("The Wonders of the Neem Tree, Jan. 17, 1992),
stated that the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) published a report
designed to "open up the Western world's corporations to the seemingly
endless variety of products the tree might offer." According to one of the
members of the NRC panel, "In this day and age, when we're not very
happy about synthetic pesticides, (neem] has great appeal."
The appeal is blatantly commercial. The U .S. pesticides market is
worth about $2 billion annually. At the moment, biopesticides such as
pyrethrin, together with their synthetic mimics, constitute about 145°
million, but that figure is expected to rise to over $800 million by 1998.

PLAGIARISM OR INNOVATION?

Grace's aggressive interest in Indian neem production provoked a chorus

of objections from Indian scientists, farmers, and political activists, who
assert that multinational companies have no right to expropriate the fruit
of centuries of indigenous experimentation and several decades of Indian
scientific research. This has stimulated a bitter intercontinental debate
about the ethics of intellectual property and patent rights.
In April 1993, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to the
U.S. Congress titled, "Biotechnology, Indigenous Peoples, and Intellec-
tual Property Rights," set out some of the arguments used to justify
patenting and its corresponding market control: " Azadirachtin itself is a
natural product found in the seedsof the neem ,tree and it is its significant
active component. There is no patent on it, perhaps because everyone rec-
ognizes it as a product of nature. But. ..a synthetic form of a naturally oc-
curring compound may be patentable, because the synthetic form is not
technically a product of nature, and the process by which the compound is
synthesized may be patentable." However, neither azadirachtin, a rela-
tively complex chemical, nor any of the other active principles of the neem
tree have yet been synthesized in laboratories. The existing patents apply
only to methods of extracting the natural chemical in the form of an
emulsion or solution -methods that are simply an extension of the tradi-
tional processesused for millennia for making neem-based products. The
biologically active polar chemicals can be extracted using technology al-
152 VANDANA SHIVA AND RADHA HOLLA-BHAR

ready available to villages in developing countries, says Eugene Shulz,

chair of the NRC panel. "Villagers smash 'em [the seeds] up, soak [them]
in cold water overnight, scoop the emulsion off the top and throw it on the
crops" (Science,Jan. 17, 1992).
In a letter to Professor Nanjundaswamy, convener of the Karnataka
Rajya Raitha Sangha farmers' organization, W.R. Grace's justification for
patents therefore pivots on the claim that these modernized extraction
processes constitute a genuine innovation over traditional extraction
processes, used for millenia: " Although traditional knowledge inspired

the research and development that led to these patented compositions and
processes,they were considered sufficiently novel and different from the
original product of nature and the traditional method of use to be
patentable. ...Azadirachtin which was being destroyed during conven-
tional processing of Neem Oil/Neem Cake is being additionally extracted
in the form of Water Soluble Neem Extract and hence it is an add-on
rather than a substitute to the current neem industry in India."
In short, these corporate processes are supposedly novel advances on
Indian techniques. However, this novelty exists mainly in the context of
the ignorance of the West. Over the two thousand years that neem-based
biopesticides and medicines have been used in India, many complex
processeswere developed to make them available for specific use, though
the active ingredients were not given Latinized scientific names. In fact,
the widespread common knowledge and common use of neem was one of
the primary reasQnsgiven by the Indian Central Insecticide Board for not
registering neem products under the Insecticides Act of 1968. The board
argued that neem materials had been in extensive use in India for various
purposes since time immemorial, without any known deleterious effects.
The U.S. EPA, on the other hand, does not accept the validity of tradi-
tional knowledge and has imposed a full series of safety tests upon Mar-
gosan-O.
The allegation that azedirachtin was being destroyed during tradi-
tional processes is inaccurate. The extracts were subject to degradation
over time, but this was not a problem, since farmers make such extracts to
use when they need them. The problem of stabilization only arose when it
needed to be packaged and transported for a long time to be marketed
commercially.
Moreover, stabilization and other advances attributed to modern labo-
ratory technology had already been developed by Indian scientists in the
196os and 19705, well before U.S. and Japanese companies expressed an
interest. In a conversation with Dr. VandanaShiva, Dr. R. P. Singh of the
Indian Agricultural Research Institute asserted, "Margosan-O is a simple
 Piracy by Patent: The Caseof the Neem Tree 153

ethanolic extract of neem seed kernel. In the late sixties we discovered the
potency of not only ethanolic extract but also other extracts of neem. ...
Work on the neem as pesticide originated from the division as early as
1962. Extraction techniques were also developed for a couple of years.
The azadirachtin-rich dust was developed by me."
The reluctance of Indian scientists to patent their inventions, thus leav-
ing their work vulnerable to piracy, may in part derive from a recognition
that the bulk of the work had already been accomplished by generations
of anonymous experimenters. This debt has yet to be acknowledged by
the u.s. patentees and their apologists. The April 1993 CRS report claims
that "the method of scattering ground neem seedsas a pesticide would not
be a patentable process, because this process. ..would be deemed obvi-
ous." Such a statement betrays either lamentable misjudgment or a racist
dismissal of indigenous knowledge. The discovery of neem's pesticidal
properties and of the means to process it was by no means "obvious" but
evolved through extended systematic knowledge development in non-
Western cultures. In comparison to this first nonobvious leap of knowl-
edge, the subsequent minor derivatives are quite "obvious" indeed.

FROM WASTE TO WEALTH

w. R. Grace and P. J. Margo also claim in the letter to Professor Nanjun-
daswamy that their project benefits the Indian economy. It does so, they
say, by "providing employment opportunities at the local level and higher
remuneration to the farmers as the price of Neem Seedshas gone up in re-
cent times because value is being added to it during the process. Over the
last 20 years the price of the neem seed has gone up from Rs.300 a ton to
current levels of Rs.3000:-4000 a ton."
The increase in the price of neem seeds has turned an often free re-
source into an exorbitantly priced one, with the local user now competing
for the seed with an industry that is supplying wealthy consumers in the
North. As the local farmer cannot afford the price that industry can, the
diversion of the seed as raw material from the community to industry will
ultimately establish a regime in which a handful of companies holding
patents will control all accessand all production processesrelated to neem
as raw material.
P. J. Margo claims in the letter to Professor Nanjundaswamy that this
is "a classic case of converting waste to wealth and beneficial to the Indian
farmer and its economy." This statement is in turn a classic example of the
assumption that local use of a product does not create wealth but waste
154 VANDANA SHIVA AND RADHA HOLLA-BHAR

and that wealth is created only when corporations commercialize the re-
sources used by local communities.
There is a growing awareness throughout India that the commoditiza-
tion of neem will result in its expropriation by multinational companies.
On August 15, 1995, on Indian Independence Day, farmers in the state of
Karnataka rallied outside the offices of the district collector in each district
to challenge the demands for "intellectual property rights" of multina-
tionals companies such as W. R. Grace. The farmers carried neem
branches as a symbol of collective indigenous knowledge.
Their ciimpaign has been supported by many noted Indian scientists.
Dr. R. P. Singh expressed to the authors his "whole [hearted] support [for
the] campaign against the globalization of Qeem." Dr. B. N. Dhawan,
emeritus scientist at the Central Drug Research Institute, maintains, "It is
really unfortunate that the benefits of all this work should go to an indi-
vidual or to a company. I sincerely hope that. ..the neem will continue to
remain available for use by people all over the world without paying a
high price to a company." Dr. V. P. Sharma, director of the Malaria Re-
search Institute, agrees: "We have discovered the repellent action of the
neem oil. ...There is no question of anybody else in India or outside tak-
ing a priority or patent on this aspect of neem oil. I would like this discov-
ery to be used as widely as possible to prevent nuisance from insect pests of
public health importance and in the prevention of the disease transmitted
by them."

GLOBAL TRIPS

The movement that has crystallized around the issue of neem patents rep-
resents a direct challenge to the attempt, in the Uruguay Round ofGATT,
to impose upon Third World countries the patent regime known as Trade
Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS), which already obtains in the
North. Before now, it was accepted internationally that different coun-
tries have different needs and priorities; each country is allowed to formu-
late its own patent laws, and the patents granted by or registered in the
country are applicable only there. However, developed nations, particu-
larly the United States, accuse Third World countries of engaging in "un-
fair trade practices" if they fail to adopt stringent patent laws. As part of
such accusations, the industrialized nations claim to have lost millions of
dollars due to "piracy" by the Third World.
Under the new GATT agreement, all this will change. Universaliza-
tion of the TRIPS regime under GATT means that national laws that
 Piracy by Patent: Tht' Cast' oftht' Nt't'm Trt't' 155

protect domestic innovation and manufacture will have to be altered to

conform with the more stringent patent laws of developed countries,
where the maximization of profits is the cornerstone of culture.
Neem is by no means the only living organism that has become subject
to a patent. Scientists are traveling the globe to secure prior rights on po-
tentially patentable organisms. Here is an excerpt from a recent report on
this issue by Canada's Rural Advancement Foundation (RAFI), giving
several examples of corporate piracy of life:

African Soapberry
Another plant that, like neem, has been at the center of attention is
the African Soapberry of endod (Phytdacca dodecandra}. Its proper-
ties as an insecticidal soap, a fish intoxicant and a spermicidal con-
traceptive have long been known to Africans, but in 1964, the
Ethiopian Dr. Aklilu Lemma reported to the Tropical Products In-
stitute in Britain that it killed the water-snails that are the only vec-
tor of the disease, bilharzia. He was subsequently alarmed to find
out that in his absence the Institute patented an extraction process
without consulting him or crediting him. Northern companies are
not interested in endod as a preventative for bilharzia in the Third
World {which is the province of Baylucide, an expensive and muta-
genic German chemical molluscicide), but for use in toxically sensi-
tive situations in the North -in particular, to kill zebra mussel
which clog North American water pipes and disrupt U.S. fisheries.
Patenting endod means that the people of Ethiopia and other
African countries will receive no roy~lties and may eventually be
deprived of the free use of the plant, as it will be needed for the
commercial productio.n of molluscicide for the U.S.

Cotton
Patents on life forms can be very wide-ranging. A subsidiary of
w. R. Grace, Agracetus Inc., has taken out U.S. patents which cover
all genetically engineered cotton varieties until 2008, and has the
patent pending in Europe, Brazil, China and India. The patents
cover methods of inserting genes into cotton using both bacteria
and "gene gun" technology. Agracetus' vice-president of finance,
Russel Smestad, claims: " All transgenic cotton products, regardless
of which engineering technique is used, will have to be commer-
cially licensed through us before they can enter the marketplace."
The patent has provoked a chorus of objections from scientists and
156 VANDANA SHIVA AND RADHA HOLLA-BHAR

breeders. Dr. Jerry Quisenberry of the u.s. Department of Agricul-

ture commented: "Public research on cotton, at least at the molecu-
lar level, will have~o come to a screeching halt. ...What's to say the
same thing won't happen for other commodities?"

Patent Banks

u.s. multinationals such as Pfizer, Bristol Meyers, and Merck

now hold several hundred patents on life forms, many housed
in the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Rockville,
Maryland, where there are some 60,000 patented or potentially
patentable organisms. The collection holds potentially commercial
micro-organisms such as yeasts, algae, bacteria, and viruses -for
example, u.s. Patent No. 4,925,663, owned by the University of
Florida, is a Brazilian fungus known to be fatal to fire ants, which
cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops. Many of the sam-
ples stored in ATCC involve tissue or cell lines scraped from living
humans or exhumed bodies. These include World Patent No. WO
9208784, or "human t-Iymphotropic virus type 2 from Guaymi In-
dians in Panama." This patent is claimed by the U.S. Department
of Commerce which has demanded global acquiescence to the
patenting of life forms.

For Third World countries, all of these corporate monopolies over neem
and also other life forms will have numerous negative consequences.
Firstly, it will undermine our cultural and ethical fabric that supports our
agriculture. We have viewed fundamental life processes as sacred, not as
commodities to be bought and sold on the market. The sacred cow will
give way to patented and cloned livestock. {According to U.S. patent law,
the offspring of patented livestock would also be subject to royalty charges
throughout the seventeen to twenty-two years of patent protections, so
that farmers will be made to pay royalties each time a calf is born.) And
seeds,which have been traditionally treated as sacred gifts from Earth ex-
changed freely between farmers, will become patented commodities that
Third World farmers will have to buy. Hans Lenders, secretary general of
the world seed houses and their breeders, has actually proposed to abolish
farmers' rights to save seed. He says, "Even though it has been a tradition
in most countries that a farmer can save seed from his own crop, it is,
under the chilnging circumstances, not equitable that a farmer can use
this seed and grow a commercial crop out of it without payment of roy-
alty. ...[T]he seed industry will have to fight hard for a better kind of
 Piracy by Patent: The Caseof the Net'm Tree 157

."
protectIon.

The corporate demand to change a common heritage into a commod-

ity and to treat profits generated through this transformation as a property
right will bring ethical, cultural, and economic harm to Third World
farmers. The Third World farmer has a three-fold relationship with the
corporations that demand a monopoly of life forms and life processes.
Firstly, the farmer is a supplier of germ plasm to TNCs. Secondly, the
farmer is a competitor in terms of innovation and rights to genetic re-
sources. Finally, the Third World farmer is a consumer of the technologi-
cal and industrial products ofTNCs. Patent protection displaces farmers
as competitors, transforms them into suppliers of free raw materials, and
makes them totally dependent on industrial supplies for vital inputs such
as seeds.Above all, the frantic cry for patent protection in corporate agri-
culture is really for protectionfrom farmers, who are the original breeders
and developers of biological resources in agriculture. The corporations
argue that patent protection is essential for innovation -but only for in-
novation that brings profits to corporate businesses.Farmers have carried
out innovations over centuries, and public institutions have carried out in-
novations over decades without any property rights or patent protection.

NEW IDEA: COLLECTIVE PATENTING

The unfortunate logic of patenting is that if you can't beat patentees, you
may have to join them. India's traditional absence of property rights on
biological organisms and medicinal and agricultural products has offered
no protection against the outsiders such as W. R. Grace, who put an inter-
national patent upon the.m. Particularly vulnerable are those farmers
whose seed stock, animal breeding stock, and natural pesticides may
gradually become the intellectual property of.national or muitinational
companies; they will lose their independence and be forced to pay high
prices for products that they could formerly provide for themselves.
For this reason a new alliance of farmers and scientists has embarked
upon the formulation of an alternative form of intellectual property, the
collt'ctitlt' patent -called samuhik gyan sanad, or collective intellectual
property rights (CIPRs). The patents invest the right to benefit commer-
cially from traditional knowledge in the community that developed it.
The collective patent recognizes knowledge as a social product subject to
local common rights, rather than an element adrift in a limbo of free
global accessuntil the first commercial venture snatches it up. Any com-
158 VANDANA SHIVA AND RADHA HOLLA-BHAR

pany purloining local knowledge and local resources is engaging in intel-

lectual piracy, and the farmers' organizations seeit as their right to punish
such violators. Hence, farmers are demanding that disputes between
multinational companies and Third World farmers be settled through
village organizations rather than in GATT panels.
To many observers in the North, long alienated from their environ-
ment, the debate about intellectual property rights may seem somewhat
ethereal and detached from the mechanics of everyday life. To farmers in
India, however, it represents an expropriation of their immediate sur-
roundings and an attack on their way of life. By targeting the village
neem tree, W. R. Grace's U.S. patents have brought the issue of TRIPS
home to Indian peasants. In so doing, farmers have made the versatile,
sturdy, "blessed tree" and "curer of all ailments" a standard of resistance
to the creeping power of global capital.

AFTERWORD

In June 1995, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
forced the government to defer indefinitely a "patent amendment" bill the
government had proposed. That government bill would have brought
India into "compliance" with GATT and the WTO's new rules concern-
ing intellectual property rights.
The deferment of the patent bill created an unprecedented situation.
The legislature of the largest democracy in the world has gone in one di-
rection, while the central government feels it must alter its nation's laws to
conform to the WTO.
As this chapter goes to press (February 1996), India's laws still do not
permit product patents in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. The indigenous
farmers of India, through their protest activities about neem and other
seeds,deserve full credit for this remarkable development.

Another recent development: On June 9, 1995, a section of the European

Parliament registered strong support for India's parliamentary refusal to
grant pharmaceutical product patents and registered a "legal opposition"
in the European Patent Office to w. R. Grace's request for a fungicide
based on the extraction of neem oil. This gives hope that the movement is
spreading.
Whether the Indian Parliament will hold the line in the long run, or
 Pir(lCYby Patcnt: The Caseof the Neem Tree 159

whether the Indian government can find ways to circumvent the parlia-
ment and the farmers, remains to be seen. But Indian refusal to comply
thus far with the WTO has the potential for creating a grave crisis for an
organization not accustomed to such democratic challenges.