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US-Indian relations stretched over yoga IP
- Posted in: Ip Strategy
on 01st June 2007 Link to this page
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Two Indian government departments have launched action against the US in an attempt to turn around the superpower’s prolific granting of yoga-themed IP Rights. Of particular concern are patents issued for practical aspects of the exercise, such as posing sequences, but a variety of related merchandise and brands have also been criticised. Efforts are being led by the Indian Commerce Ministry, under the guidance of the Health department.
An anonymous Health Ministry official told the Khaleej Times on 30 May that the Indian mission – the nation’s embassy – will also be drafted in: ‘The Commerce Ministry has taken a strong view on the issue and is in the process of sending a protest note to the US Trade Representative. The mission, on the other hand, would deal with the US Patent and Trademark Office.’
Comment released by the Health Ministry-based Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) indicates that India is keen to grasp the full scale of the problem before pressing its case: ‘Since the claims of the USPTO having issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories, and 2,315 yoga trademarks are based only on newspaper reports, we have asked our Indian mission to ascertain the facts first.’
India is opposed to the approval of foreign IP for yoga techniques and products, arguing that the exercise is part of its cultural heritage. It has attacked the validity of patents in this realm on grounds of obviousness, claiming that posing sequences employed by Western practitioners have been in the Indian public domain for centuries.
A case in point is that of ex-pat Bikram Choudhury, a California-based guru who has trademarked a series of ‘Hot Yoga’ poses recommended for the sauna. While his efforts to register IP have met with legal resistance from fellow teachers – and drawn Indian government criticism along the way – his lawyer, John Marcoux, uses a musical analogy: ‘He’s not claiming ownership of individual notes, but of a particular selection of notes and [their] arrangement … This doesn’t hurt yoga, it helps spread it around the world.’
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