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Basmati battle won, not lost

Harish Damodaran

NEW DELHI, Aug. 21

PARLIAMENT today was rocked over newspaper reports of India `losing the basmati battle', with the United States Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) apparently `upholding' the Texas-based rice breeder, RiceTec Inc's controversial patent on `superior' st rains of basmati rice.

The Government was grilled on its alleged inaction in allowing RiceTec to lay claim over developing `novel' rice lines producing grains having characteristics `superior' to those of good quality basmati rice, which would then adversely affect the country 's commercial interests.

But the facts point to the contrary: India has actually won and not lost the basmati battle. In its original patent on `Basmati rice lines and grains'-- granted by the USPTO on September 2, 1997 -- RiceTec had made as many as 20 claims.

In response, the Government filed a `re-examination' request with the USPTO in April 2000, contesting three out of the 20 claims, which were seen as particularly sensitive as they pertained to the invention of rice grains possessing traits described as ` novel'.

The `novel' characteristics mentioned in the three claims (Nos. 15, 16 and 17) included grains having "a starch index of about 27 to about 35, a 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline content of about 150 ppb (parts per billion) to about 2,000 ppb, a length of about 6.2 m m to about 8.0 mm, a width of about 1.6 mm to about 1.9 mm and a length to width ratio of about 3.5 to about 4.5, a lengthwise increase of about 75 per cent to about 150 per cent when cooked and a chalk index of less than about 20".

The Government, however, argued that the specific grain traits listed were already found in over 90 per cent of the basmati germplasm existing in India and Pakistan much prior to the filing of the patent. Moreover, extensive documentation was submitted t o establish that the various basmati varieties cultivated over centuries in the subcontinent contained all the `novel' grain attributes mentioned in the patent.

On its part, RiceTec, in September 2000, withdrew the three claims contested by India, besides also unilaterally forgoing another claim (No. 4), which was again largely grain-related. Officials say that the `basmati battle' was more than half-won by the withdrawal of the four grain-related claims.

Indeed, had the grain-related claims not been withdrawn, RiceTec would have obtained the sole monopoly over the marketing of rice grains possessing the said `novel' traits in the US. Theoretically, this would have hit the country's exports of basmati ric e to the US as commercial sale of grains with similar attributes would have infringed RiceTec's patent.

Unlike the four withdrawn `grain-specific' claims, the remaining 16 claims were basically plant or `lines-specific'. That is, these concerned claims of RiceTec having developed `novel rice lines' that could produce grains having characteristics `similar or superior to those of good quality basmati rice'.

Further, these plants possessed the high-yielding, disease-resistance and photoperiod-insensitive traits found in modern semi-dwarf rice varieties. The patent also claimed that the `novel' lines could be cultivated in `North, Central or South America, or Caribbean Islands'.

In other words, while the withdrawal of the grain-specific claims ensured that RiceTec would not be able to block the country's basmati rice exports to the US, it could, however, produce `similar or superior' grains outside India and thereby end the subc ontinent's monopoly in the trade.

If basmati-like -- though not superior -- grains could be grown in the northern hemisphere, basmati would no longer be considered an exotic product, unique to the specific climatic and soil conditions of the Himalayan foothills.

In May 2001, however, RiceTec withdrew 11 other claims -- Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 14, 18, 19 and 20 -- which means that, as of now, only five out of the original 20 claims remain. These claims -- Nos. 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 -- essentially relate to three `n ovel rice lines', namely Bas867, RT1117 and RT1121, that are capable of producing grains similar or superior to basmati rice. But these are relatively harmless claims pertaining to RiceTec's specific plant varietal breeding efforts and not open-ended cla ims covering grains per se.

In fact, the most significant victory for the country has been that the USPTO Patent Examiner has officially changed the title of RiceTec's patent from the original `Basmati lines and grains' to `Rice lines Bas867, RT1117 and RT1121'. What the Government needs to do now is go a step further and register `Basmati' as a geographical indication, indigenous to the subcontinent. This would guarantee that companies such as RiceTec are not be able to market the rice produced from their so-called novel lines as `basmati' even if the grains possess all the characteristics attributable to Indian varieties.