Turmeric wound-healing patent (revoked)

Background

In 1995 the US Patent Office granted patent 5,401,504 to two researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center for using turmeric to heal wounds. Turmeric had been applied to wounds in Indian households and described in Ayurvedic texts for centuries. In 1996 India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) asked for a re-examination, submitting prior art that included Sanskrit texts and a 1953 paper in the Journal of the Indian Medical Association. The patent was revoked in 1997.

Significance

Widely cited as the first time a patent based on the traditional knowledge of a developing country was successfully challenged. It also exposed the underlying problem: most traditional knowledge was not documented in a form patent examiners could search.

Meanwhile in the West

The patentees were two US-based researchers.

Fair to say

This is a genuine 'patented in the West, then overturned' case — India WON it.

Path to modern innovation

A landmark victory against biopiracy of traditional knowledge.

1995Turmeric wound-healing patent (revoked)

• 2001Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)
  • 2010TKDL documentation of yoga postures

Builds on

• 1,000 BCEMedicinal plant pharmacopoeia

Global impact

• Prompted India to build the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (2001), so that examiners could find such prior art.
• Became a reference case in WIPO's work on traditional knowledge, which led to the 2024 WIPO Treaty requiring patent applicants to disclose the origin of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.

Transmission

India's CSIR filed 32 prior-art references; the USPTO rejected all claims (order Aug 1997).

References

• 1USPTO 5,401,504
• 2Nature 389:6 (1997)
• 3The Lancet (1997)

Further reading

• 4Wikipedia: Turmeric

Related

Diamond v. Chakrabarty (patenting life)