Vandana Shiva's argument is a plea to her fellow Indians and legislators to insist on the revision of global intellectual property regimes that allow for the patent and exploitation of indigenous methods and technologies. Such patents allow for the piracy of indigenous knowledge for the benefit of western corporations. Her most proximate example is a recent US patent issued to a pharmaceutical research company based in New Jersey for the proprietary use of 'karela', 'jamun','brinjal' to treat diabetes. Shiva is outraged that the method, a traditional and everyday Indian practice, has been deeded to the exclusive ownership of two assignees in the United States.
Shiva substantiates her argument by tracing the destructive implications of such US patent law. The ante of outrage goes up with each argumentative turn. Starting with the LOGICAL ABSURDITY: how can you patent and own something that has been in practice for hundreds if not thousands of years. To revealing the INSTITUTIONALIZED "Piracy" of the American patent system: historically, the US has condoned the theft of foreign technologies in order to foster national comparative advantage. Here, Shiva effectively illustrates the insidiousness of such traditions by anecdotally tying the practice back to America's trade revolution against the British. Also by directly quoting the failings in US IP law to bar patents requested for "prior art" in a way that does not discriminate against indigenous methods in underdeveloped countries (proof of "prior art" can only be made in foreign or domestic trade publications). Next, and most compelling, Shiva describes the GLOBALIZATION of such a flawed intellectual property regimes: as a result American economic hegemony has imprinted these elementally flawed patent laws onto international regulatory bodies that would then have jurisdiction to prohibit developing nations from the commercialization and foreign trade of their own indigenous methods. As a quick aside, I am surprised that she doesn't play out the logical extension of her argument; that, if enforced, Indians would be forced to license for the use of their own indigenous technologies.
After reading her Op-Ed, "The US Patent System Legalizes Theft and Biopiracy, I get the distinct impression that Vandana Shiva has a deep appreciation of the 90's eco-classic "The Medicine Man". For those who don't recollect the film, don't fear, I have engaged in multiple screening. In short, a very beautiful biochemist is sent by a pharmaceutical company to the Amazonian rainforest to check on Sean Connery who, in a fit of deep research, had cut of ties with the outside world. After a lot of brooding and classic Connery unfriendliness, he finally admits having found a cure for cancer, but has failed to recreate the naturally occurring formula that was given to him by a tribal medicine man. The original effective serum is running low as a nearby logging company builds a road headed straight for the village to begin chopping. Connery refuses to ask the powerful pharmaceutical company for help in halting the logging but is paralyzed by the knowledge that hints of a cancer cure will warrant in numerous researchers whose foreign diseases would wipeout the native tribe. Ultimately, a fight ensues between Connery and a bulldozer that starts a massive forest fire just as the beautiful biochemist realizes the cancer cure was a product not of a flower, as assumed, but a species of rare indigenous ant. As so happens, the local population of ant was completely wiped out with the fiery destruction of their habitat.
At this point Shiva is on her feet, whooping very loudly. From her perspective the Western corporate interests have been doubly stymied. The logging and pharmaceutical corporations have been hindered in their exploitation of third world timber and a locally practiced cure. However Shiva fails to recognize two vital points. Firstly, the abuse of patent rights goes both ways. If Shiva is anything like the majority of her fellow Indians, she has likely watched "Medicine Man" on a pirated DVD. The circuit board in her generic DVD player, the word processing software on her computer are undoubtedly based upon a foreign model. The blackmarket pills fighting malaria in India's northern province, AIDS in Africa most often are not subject to intellectual property enforcement. Yes, unfair enforcement mechanisms discriminate against indigenous products and methods, but is Shiva willing to trade the illegal proliferation of western products to get back the indigenously derived diabetes medicine and Bazmati rice? In my opinion, I cheer the blackmarkets who allow helpful technologies to reach the largest amounts of people for the lowest costs. The indigenous products that do not qualify as "prior art" will not make India rich. She must grasp it is the Indian intellectuals, software programmers, and engineers (all of whom document their work) who will achieve this. Secondly, and more prescient to our course, I challenge the her claims of ownership over such indigenous products. Her prime example, the health benefits of certain plants, are not a product of Indian ingenuity but its environment. the cancer cure of "medicine man" was a naturally occurrence. The duration of their existence is on a time scale where "indigenous" is but a blip.
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