Locals win patent dispute

29 Jan 2010 13:26 - Yolandi Groenewald

The community, from Alice in the Eastern Cape, argued that local healers had used the method for generations.

A rural South African community has won its case against German homeopathic giant Schwabe Pharmaceuticals over a traditional medicine the company had sought to patent.

The European Patent Office this week revoked the patent granted to Schwabe, which protected a method of producing extracts from the roots of endemic South African plants Pelargonium sidoides and Pelargonium reniforme. The extract is used to make the company’s top-selling cough and cold syrup, Umckaloabo.

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The community, from Alice in the Eastern Cape, argued that local healers had used the method for generations.

Mariam Mayet, of the Africa Centre for Biosafety, said the office found that the patent did not satisfy the requirements of the European Patent Convention.

Mayet added: “Patent systems are seriously flawed. It’s inherently unfair that public-interest NGOs should have to challenge patents, at enormous effort and expense, to protect resources and traditional knowledge from the South.”

Schwabe’s quality head said the company would oppose the ruling. “We’re confident we’ll overcome the remaining concerns raised by the European Patent Agency,” he said. “The ruling confirmed the process described in the patent to be new.”

He said the company expected competitors to continue complying with the patent.

Last week the M&G incorrectly attributed the statement that “so-called ‘biopiracy’ is not a problem of patent law, but is probably a direct result of actual conditions in many so-called Third World countries” to Wilmar Schwabe. The statement, extracted from Schwabe’s court papers, is quoted in an ACB report. We regret the error.