The Hindu : Centre's assurance to court on wheat patent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

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Centre's assurance to court on wheat patent

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 16. The Centre today assured the Supreme Court that the Government would take whatever steps necessary, including filing of objections by February 21 before the European Patent Office (EPO), on the United States company, Monsanto's bid to get an European patent on Indian wheat.

The Additional Solicitor-General, Mukul Rohatgi, gave this assurance before a three-judge Bench comprising the Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Justice A.R. Lakshmanan and Justice S.H. Kapadia hearing a petition filed by the Research Foundation for Science and Technology and Vandana Shiva alleging that the Centre had not taken any steps to oppose Monsanto's claims on the wheat patent.

Mr. Rohatgi said the Government would do the needful since the matter was of national interest and grave concern to the country.

The Bench adjourned the hearing to February 23.

The petitioner contended that in 1990, Unilever applied for a patent on wheat derived from the traditional Indian variety, `nap hal', before the EPO.

In 1998, Monsanto acquired Unilever's wheat division and five years later, the patent on wheat was granted to Monsanto.

Referring to a question raised in Parliament in this regard, the petitioner said the Government had clarified that the patent was on a new variety of wheat for use in Europe and that the `nap hal' variety was not covered under the patent.

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