Patenting the chapati | Sepia Mutiny

Last week, the European Patent Office revoked agricultural conglomerate Monsanto’s patent on a variety of Indian Nap Hal wheat, widely used in chapatis because it doesn’t rise when baked (via Boing Boing). Indians had cried biopiracy, reacting the way we would if France had patented apple pie (Monsanto is based in St. Louis, Missouri).

The wheat’s low gluten content gives it low water absorption and elasticity. One scientist elaborated on how the patent’s central claim was not novel:

The Indian wheat patent by Monsanto has lower gluten, which is responsible for its lower elasticity… This is the trait that is the core of Monsanto’s patent and it is a trait evolved by farmers breeding in India. Introducing the trait into a cross… is an obvious step any breeder familiar with the art of breeding can undertake. Monsanto’s claim is clearly not novel. This is a clear case of piracy of India’s indigenous knowledge of breeding and cooking.

Yes, breeding and cooking: the desi core competencies. The patent opposition was filed in conjunction with Greenpeace.

Monsanto denied the patents would be used to block Indian farmers from using their Nap Hal seed. “Indian users can use Nap Hal for chapatis or whatever else, now and just as they’ve always been used to,” McDermott told The Scientist. “The idea that Indian farmers would have to pay royalties to use Nap Hal, that’s just inflammatory and ridiculous.”

The controversy echoes the neem patent case in 2000. Neem leaves are widely used in ayurvedic remedies. The EPO revoked this patent, held by the U.S. government and W.R. Grace on a neem-based fungicide.

Here is the patent text.

2 thoughts on “Patenting the chapati”

very interesting article Manish. I did not read the original patent and article but this is similar to patents/arguments that go on between pharmaceutical companies. Monsanto started a branch in India and have a research division in india too I think, no wonder they came up with identification of this genetic trait in indian wheat. while indian farmers were doing the traditional plant breeding the right way without knowing the scientific basis for that trait. probably monsanto was trying to patent that trait/gene/genes responsible for that trait so that no other plant biotech company would use those genes/traits to make transgenic wheat with those special properties. like they say indian temples were built with advanced architectural knowledge though its not written anywhere in textbooks nor did they have any western scientific architectural knowledge/books when they built those temples. In pharmaceutical companies, the fights are about who owns genes/DNA they like to play with. Human genome/DNA was sequenced by a couple of institutions/companies who claim they have a right on a piece of DNA sequence. But some other company would file a patent on the same DNA sequence identifying the gene in that sequence. And some other company would file a patent on the same gene identifying its function and argue that DNA sequence or identifying a gene would not mean anything unless u know its function in a particular disease state. so which of these companies should win the patent..all three companies put in effort right.. Now after they finished human genome sequencing there are more patent related problems.. I was asked once to do research papers on one such a patent where some ten years back a big company wrote a very broad patent on a technology which is used by every biotech/pharmaceutical company today.The patent was so broad and the way the author wrote the paper made it real hard to proove that some else also came up with similar idea though many used the same techology before the patent was filed on that technology by this company. And at the end in a courtcase the big company won and a lot of small companies had to shut down their companies because of that patent as they could not afford to pay royalties to this big company. A couple of years later another company filed a courtcase against the big company patent and won the case. But it was too late and too bad for all the small companies which had to shut down, burn all their reagents and everything. This is gonna a big issue in future too specially pharmaceutical companies fighting over genes and geneproducts.

Monsanto denied the patents would be used to block Indian farmers from using their Nap Hal seed. “Indian users can use Nap Hal for chapatis or whatever else, now and just as they’ve always been used to,” McDermott told The Scientist. “The idea that Indian farmers would have to pay royalties to use Nap Hal, that’s just inflammatory and ridiculous.”

Isn’t that sort of true though, since the patent was European and has no jurisdiction over what goes on in India? Of course, Monsanto’s patent wasn’t novel so there’s good cause for it to be revoked anyway. Point being? Hmmm… I got nothing!

prakruti on October 13, 2004 at 4:46 pm said:

very interesting article Manish. I did not read the original patent and article but this is similar to patents/arguments that go on between pharmaceutical companies. Monsanto started a branch in India and have a research division in india too I think, no wonder they came up with identification of this genetic trait in indian wheat. while indian farmers were doing the traditional plant breeding the right way without knowing the scientific basis for that trait. probably monsanto was trying to patent that trait/gene/genes responsible for that trait so that no other plant biotech company would use those genes/traits to make transgenic wheat with those special properties. like they say indian temples were built with advanced architectural knowledge though its not written anywhere in textbooks nor did they have any western scientific architectural knowledge/books when they built those temples. In pharmaceutical companies, the fights are about who owns genes/DNA they like to play with. Human genome/DNA was sequenced by a couple of institutions/companies who claim they have a right on a piece of DNA sequence. But some other company would file a patent on the same DNA sequence identifying the gene in that sequence. And some other company would file a patent on the same gene identifying its function and argue that DNA sequence or identifying a gene would not mean anything unless u know its function in a particular disease state. so which of these companies should win the patent..all three companies put in effort right.. Now after they finished human genome sequencing there are more patent related problems.. I was asked once to do research papers on one such a patent where some ten years back a big company wrote a very broad patent on a technology which is used by every biotech/pharmaceutical company today.The patent was so broad and the way the author wrote the paper made it real hard to proove that some else also came up with similar idea though many used the same techology before the patent was filed on that technology by this company. And at the end in a courtcase the big company won and a lot of small companies had to shut down their companies because of that patent as they could not afford to pay royalties to this big company. A couple of years later another company filed a courtcase against the big company patent and won the case. But it was too late and too bad for all the small companies which had to shut down, burn all their reagents and everything. This is gonna a big issue in future too specially pharmaceutical companies fighting over genes and geneproducts.
brimful on October 13, 2004 at 6:14 pm said:

Monsanto denied the patents would be used to block Indian farmers from using their Nap Hal seed. “Indian users can use Nap Hal for chapatis or whatever else, now and just as they’ve always been used to,” McDermott told The Scientist. “The idea that Indian farmers would have to pay royalties to use Nap Hal, that’s just inflammatory and ridiculous.”

Isn’t that sort of true though, since the patent was European and has no jurisdiction over what goes on in India? Of course, Monsanto’s patent wasn’t novel so there’s good cause for it to be revoked anyway. Point being? Hmmm… I got nothing!