While the Tropical Botanical Garden & Research Institute (TBGRI) is now gearing up to again commercialize its celebrated and controversial herbal compound Jeevani, there are evidences to prove that at least 4 years ago the top level Indian herbal scientists, IPR experts and authorities had knowledge about the patent right infringement on Jeevani by the US firm Nutrisciences Innovations LLC.

It may be recalled that the issue was exposed only in February, 2004, when Pharmabiz wrote a series of articles about the weak patent protection for Jeevani, trade mark rights hijacked by the US firm, and large scale selling of Jeevani in global markets in various forms and as ingredients to many energy capsules and rejuvenation medicines, all claimed to be done without the knowledge of either the manufacturer AVP, TBGRI and other stake holders, including the scientists related to the invention.

During the 2000-'01 period, Padmasree Prof. Anil K Guptha, coordinator of the Ahmedabad-based NGO Sristi and Honey Bee network, had done an extensive study on Jeevani and had alerted the scientific communities and authorities about the trademark right infringement being done by Nutrisciences.

The case study on Jeevani was part of the three case studies done by Prof. Guptha for the World Intellectual Property organisation (WIPO) on "the role of IPRs in the sharing of benefits arising from the use of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge," based on the data collected from Mali, Nigeria and India. The case studies were widely circulated on CD as a joint WIPO-UNEP pre-publication launch in 2001, and later the final chapter of the case studies were released with elaborate details in CD format in 2002.

A quote from Anil Guptha's study - "The research programme over the past 12 years has demonstrated that the importance of this medicinal plant alone or in association with other ingredients, as combined in the Jeevani drug, could be higher than that of Ginseng without any steroid being present in it. Its potential was acknowledged in prestigious journals like Nature and magazines like Time. Recently, the drug has been featured on the cover page of top sports and fitness magazines which claimed that, "having gone through successful clinical trials, Jeevani will soon be made available in the US as an energizer, adaptogen and immune stimulator" (2000). It has also been included in Chinese/Japanese medicine such as "Shosaikoto" with considerable clinical effect. One company in the United States of America has also registered a trademark of "Jeevani" for sale of the same drug in the USA. There is another company which is soliciting plants and/or seeds of arogyapaacha." This drug, based as it is on traditional knowledge of the Kani tribe, seems to have tremendous potential in global markets for natural health care products and sports medicines, the study says.

While analyzing the lessons learned from the Jeevani case, Anil Guptha clearly writes, " The case highlights the possibility of third party Trademark protection as done by NutriScience Innovations, LLC, USA which owns Jeevani Trademark in the United States of America. This in turn would have generated a much higher share of funds to be shared with the Kani tribe and also to fund future research. The exposure this drug is getting internationally demonstrates the potential that lies ahead".

In the bibliography of the study, Guptha has also mentioned about his personal communication by email to NutriScience Innovations LLC, on April 24, 2000 enquiring whether they owned the "Jeevani" trademark or had taken it on license from AVP Ltd. In another part of the study, Guptha says that Prof. Pushpangadan, the mastermind behind Jeevani, contacted him to advice on effective ways for sharing the benefits with the Kani communities.

The study highlights the fact the patent applications filed on drugs based on arogyapaacha were all national process patent applications and none had been granted, even many years after commercialization, and observes 'international patent applications should have been filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty administered by WIPO, to protect the formulation in countries other than India'.

The study also criticizes the fact that the role of traditional Kani healers in the drug development was not recognized by the benefit-sharing arrangements, and the tribal informants were not named as co-inventors in the patent application. Dr. Guptha also had noted the faults related to the benefit sharing arrangements between the Kani community and TBGRI.

Sources point out it was hard to believe that senior scientists like Dr. P Pushpangagan, the mastermind in developing Jeevani and also the then head of TBGRI and senior Indian scientists like Dr. R L Mashelkar or other senior Indian IP experts and Indian scientists were not aware of the patent infringement pointed out by Guptha, which was widely circulated among the scientific communities and IPR experts in the country.

It may be recalled that most of the scientists, manufacturer AVP and TBGRI authorities had claimed they were not aware of the trademark right stealing by Nutrisciences, when the Pharmabiz stories stirred up a controversy over the issue.