concept

Biopiracy

A commercial entity taking out exclusive patents on biological material or traditional knowledge without seeking permission, negotiating terms, or returning benefit to the people who held that knowledge. The word sounds like a slogan, but it has specific legal content and has been tested in court: the turmeric patent cancelled in the United States in 1997 after India produced ancient Ayurvedic texts; the neem patent revoked in Europe in 2000 for lack of novelty; the Enola bean patent invalidated in 2008 after nine years of litigation. All three succeeded on the same argument: what had been patented was not an invention but somebody else's existing knowledge.