USA supporting biopiracy?

In a landmark decision, the European Patent Office upheld a decision to revoke in its entirety a patent on a fungicidal product derived from seeds of the Neem, a tree indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.

The fungicidal properties of the Neem tree had been public knowledge in India for many centuries and that this patent exemplified how international law was being misused to transfer biological wealth from the South into the hands of a few corporations, scientists, and countries of the North.

The Board of Appeals dismissed an Appeal by the would-be proprietors —the United States of America and the company Thermo Trilogy— and maintained the decision of its Opposition Division five years ago to revoke the Neem patent in its entirety, thus bringing to a close this ten-year battle in the world’s first legal challenge to a biopiracy.