Intellectual Property?

It’s amazing how reading the newspaper everyday gives you new insight and depth to a place that would otherwise be missed. Although I am a long way from understanding politics in Thailand, I am starting to learn more about the coup and constitution-drafting efforts, the problem in the South and also about activists in the country—some of whom staged a wicked demonstration Saturday night on Democracy Monument.

In the last couple of weeks here, there has also been a big uproar over intellectual property rights and drug companies. Thailand recently announced compulsory licensing for all AIDS and heart disease-related drugs (including of the generic forms of those that are patented). The decision was taken in an effort to make drugs cheaper and therefore more accessible to the people who need them, and has since been proven to do just that. Pharmaceutical companies have been forced to lower their prices to compete with generic drugs. However, under the influence of its powerful pharmaceutical lobby, the US has put Thailand on its “Priority Watch List” due to the country’s supposed lack of respect for patents. While the US argues that Thailand has violated WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement (TRIPs), Thailand says that this decision was the only way for the country’s patients to access the invaluable drugs. This argument seems to come down to a debate between two ideals: intellectual property versus the individual’s right to affordable drugs. While I support the principle of intellectual property per se, I don’t think that upholding this notion should come at the expense of potentially millions of people in developing countries.

Another case of intellectual property rights that caught my attention is that of yoga. In February, India announced that it was creating a digital database of traditional knowledge, everything from ayurvedic remedies to construction techniques to yoga. This raises essential questions about the nature of traditional (or indigenous) knowledge and whether, when, or if it should be considered public knowledge. If it is public knowledge, then how can it be eligible for patent? India shouldn’t have to fight battles to revoke patents on their traditional knowledge, such as their legal skirmish over the US patent for the medical properties of turmeric, which India claimed to be common knowledge in its households. The US’s tendency to claim whatever it wants as its own is, however, making the protection of traditional knowledge necessary. In 2004, the US granted an Indian-American yogi a patent for a series of 26 asanas, despite the fact that they are a part of a tradition that is over 5,000 years old!

Is patenting traditional knowledge, as advocated by TRIPs, the best route to take in order to protect it? Would it be more effective to treat traditional knowledge as cultural heritage or as a collective human right? I guess that would depend on whether the economic implications of that knowledge are deemed to be more important than its intrinsic value and its cultural significance. In the case of the US and yoga, the patents, copyrights and trademarks are safeguarding a $3 billion industry. The US has obviously placed the importance on economic gains (as it did with the case of compulsory licensing of AIDS drugs in Thailand). One has to wonder what spiritual ramifications the patenting of traditional knowledge such as yoga would have for Indians themselves, and for the practice of yoga all over the world. After all, the notion of a universal mind—part of Indian beliefs, in general, and yoga—does not really seem to fit with the notion of intellectual property. In order to protect the intrinsic nature of yoga as a belief system, would this be an instance where the protection of this traditional knowledge should be treated as a cultural heritage or a collective human right? As a human rights activist, I hate to say it… but maybe money and patents speak louder than the more idealistic claims to cultural heritage and collective human rights.

I hope someone can prove me wrong.