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No need to challenge basmati patent: officials

India will not challenge the patent given to a US company RiceTec as it was confined to only a certain variants of basmati rice developed by the company and did not bar India from exporting its own basmati produce, senior officials of the commerce ministry said on Tuesday.

"There is no need to challenge the patents as these do not prevent India's marketing of basmati rice in the US. We neither have the reasons nor the grounds to challenge," officials said while pointing out that the American market accounted for just over 7 per cent of about 840,000 tonnes of basmati exported from India.

Reacting to issuance of letters of intent by US patent authority to RiceTec on five claims, they said that India had already won the case against the company when it had filed for monopoly in marketing of particular type of rice developed by it using varieties found in Texas and Pakistan.

"Out of 20 claims filed by the company in 1997 relating to plant and seeds for growing rice as also seeking monopoly to market and import basmati in US, the company has withdrawn a total of 15 claims. On this understanding the US authorities have issued them the letters of intent for the remaining five," they said.

As per the remaining five claims, the company would get the patent which is "restricted to only those three rice strains which do not impinge upon India's interest in exporting basmati rice to US," they said.

Officials said that efforts were also being made for protection of the name basmati as a geographical indication and rules were being framed for the purpose following the passage of Geographical Indication Act earlier this year.

However, the US has been using 'basmati' for about 18 years for rice grown in the country and was taking the plea of 'long usage' which is provided for under the trade-related intellectual property rights, they said.

They pointed out that the GI ACT was to safeguard produce identified for particular area and said that once the rules were framed it could be possible for India to take up the issue with US on the usage of name basmati.

"RiceTec has never claimed that it has any exclusive right to use 'basmati'. On the contrary, RiceTec claims that basmati is a generic description," the officials said.

In an internal note, the ministry said that US patent office has now accepted the objections of Agricultural and Processed Food Export Development Authority and patent notification has resulted in the cancellation of the 'wide scoped' claims posing potential threat to the export of basmati rice from India to US.

The officials pointed out that despite the RiceTec claims since 1997, basmati exports from India to US have more than doubled to about 36,000 tonnes in 2000-01 from a year before.

India's total basmati exports have surged from about 520,000 tonnes in 1996-97 valued at Rs 12.47 billion to 850,000 tonnes in 2000-01 to fetch Rs 21.42 billion.

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