The patenting of basmati rice in the United States clearly reflects the inability of Indian government and manufacturers alike to understand that the focus of ownership is shifting from physical assets to ideas, from products to processes. The government is busy trying to protect the existing output of Indian business houses, and their control over physical assets. But it is ignoring the huge peril that lurks of losing out on ownership of the traditional processes such as growing Basmati that constitute Indian competitive advantage, primary processes that have been taken for granted. It is also ignoring the imperative of creating knowledge itself, before applying that knowledge to create assets. As the WTO regime takes charge of international trade, conflicts are not going to centre around producing greater quantity or quality, but around the very processes that drive manufacturing and service. The government's obsession with import substitution indicates that it is simply not alive to this crying need toensure that ownership over ideas is established. Basmati rice is a major export commodity, and is identified with excellence of India's natural agricultural resources. Loss of patent ownership of this commodity may shake up the political parties seeking to form the next government. It is important to fight this challenge not by turning into a policy-island and closing out the economy to outsiders but to take the lead in patenting products, and respecting patents already won by others: in other words, create the patent culture.
The other lacuna that needs to be plugged to stop quick patenting of Indian commodities by firms abroad is an immediate shift to better branding and value addition, which can pre-empt moves by foreign firms to have surreptitious designs on Indian processes and ideas.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
