By Danielle Knight
WASHINGTON, Mar. 31 (IPS) - Indigenous leaders from the Amazon rain forest want the US government to revoke a patent issued to a US company for a plant used in sacred ceremonies by indigenous people in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.
The Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), which represents more than 400 groups, and two US groups, filed a request in Washington to cancel the patent covering the plant - Ayahuasca, which also is known as Yage.
The groups declared that the patented version of the plant grows naturally throughout the Amazon and had not been altered by the patent holder - a requirement to receive a US patent.
"The indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin believe that commercializing an ingredient of our religious and healing ceremonies is a profound affront to the more than 400 cultures that populate the Amazon basin," said Antonio Jacanamijoy, the general coordinator of COICA.
"According to tradition, only shamans are authorized to prepare the ceremonial drink made from the sacred plant, and no member of the community can drink it without the guidance of a shaman," he told reporters here.
The dispute began in 1986 when Loren Miller, director of International Plant Medicine Corporation, a small California-based company, received a patent on Ayahuasca claiming that he had altered the plant with the permissifrom of an indigenous group.
Although no commercial product was developed from the plant, Miller said he was experimenting with the hallucinogenic properties of the plant to see if it could be made into medicine.
Anyone can patent a plant under US law if it is a new and distinct variety. The original idea was to reward fruit growers with the exclusive right over the use and sale of the invention of new varieties of apples or other crops.
According to the patent, Miller claimed that the plant is distinct because it has different colored flowers from other plants of the species.
But William R. Anderson, director of the University of Michigan's herbarium, said the flowers were typical of the species.
"I have studies this patent and compared it with the original Ayahuasca plant and Miller's claim is without merit," he said.
The US Patent and Trademark Office improperly granted this patent, said David Downes, senior attorney for the Washington-based Centre for International Environmental Law.
"This patent is utterly flawed and should be revoked," he said. "This patent claims the plant is novel but indigenous groups have known the plant's medicinal qualities for many generations."
Patenting the Ayahuasca plant in the United States was "akin to giving exclusive rights to a researcher in Ecuador for use of a tree like the Sugar Maple," he added.
Miller's actions were denounced in 1996 by nearly 100 indigenous leaders from Brazil, Ecuador, Suriname, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guyana, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia.
COICA adopted a policy resolution specifically warning indigenous groups that Miller was an "enemy of indigenous peoples," and that "his entrance in any indigenous territory should be prohibited."
Interpreting this as a threat to a US citizen, the Inter-American Foundation, a US government development assistance agency called on COICA to retract its words. The foundation has provided more than one million dollars to the indigenous coalition but said it would reconsider future grants.
"We cannot retract this statement," said Jacanamijoy. "The indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin represented by COICA believe that the patent holder, Loren Miller, committed an offense against indigenous peoples by patenting for his benefit the sacred plant."
According to Melina Selverston, director of the Washington-based Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment, "international rules on intellectual property protection are evolving rapidly."
This case challenged the misuse of patent laws to "lay claim to biological resources that should remain in the public domain," she said.
The ayahuasca patent was a symptom of a broader problem, Downes added. "This patent exemplifies the problems that can arise when the Western patent system encounters the radically different systems for creating and managing knowledge that have been developed in many other cultures."
Another controversial US patent - cancelled in 1997 - involved turmeric, the popular spice from India. US researchers wanted to develop medicine from the spice based on the traditional knowledge of people in India.
US patent law needs to be reformed, said Downes, so that it can recognize the contributions to science and technology created and sustained by traditional knowledge systems, especially those outside the United States.
"When people claim as their own inventions naturally occurring plants and ancient knowledge, we worry that our patent law system has lost sight of its original goals of supporting innovation," he said.
The petition asked the US Patent and Trademark Office to reassess the treatment of cultural and moral issues under the patent law and to consult the public on possible reforms.
"When an individual can claim as private property something that is the sacred heritage of dozens of cultures and thousands of people, we are concerned that private property has expanded too far into the public domain," said Downes.
