India successfully protected its traditional knowledge by stalling a leading UK-based laboratory’s move to patent a medicinal composition containing turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss. The UK-based company – Pangaea Laboratories Limited – had filed the patent application in February, 2011. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) could manage to prove the European Patent Office (EPO) that turmeric, pine bark and green tea have been used since time immemorial as an effective treatment for hair loss in the indigenous systems like Ayurveda and Unani.

Yoga is an ancient Hindu philosophical, spiritual and physical practice which combines body movements and fixed postures with meditation, spiritual, and holistic exercises was developed nearly 5000 years ago in India. The Indian government has decided to shortlist around 1500 asanas creating a digital video database of the poses in an effort to thwart copyright...

Once again in the successful row of winning patent battles based on traditional knowledge, India has attained global attention as an Indian public sector laboratory from Bhavnagar has gained victory over an exceptional patent battle on a method of producing iodized salt against a huge multi-national company, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). Both in a humble...