The neighbourhood neem, the common turmeric, the lowly jamun, the everyday brinjal, the forgotten gur mar, the bitter karela... their medicinal qualities, exhaustively recorded in ancient texts and caringly passed on through the centuries from generation to generation, are relentlessly being targeted by Western researchers rushing to an ever-obliging US Patent Office. Indeed, this poaching could be dismissed as ludicrous if it didn't pose such a danger to third world intellectual property rights.

Take the anti-diabetic properties of karela and jamun. They are commonly known and are routinely recommended in Indian households, they have been noted in old texts; yet along come three New Jersey researchers, significantly two of them of Indian origin, who get a patent on a formulation listed in a host ofpublications and available on CD-ROMs.

Of course, just as India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) managed to get the turmeric patent revoked, by arguing that it was in the public domain and constituted prior knowledge, this one too will in all probability be taken back. But how many times are Indian authorities going to indulge in this legal routine? But first some clarifications.

Contrary to popular notion, a vegetable or plant cannot be patented, only certain extracts for given formulations. And even if a patent were to be sustained in the US, it would have no bearing on the Indian market though it would certainly hamper an Indian company from marketing the product in the US. Thirdly, notwithstanding the alarm they provoke, most patent applications are not serious and are essentially exploratory exercises to investigate whether there is any future in a certain product.

Trouble is, with the New Age movement becoming an integral part of popular culture and with alternative therapiesbecoming more and more lucrative, random attempts to appropriate traditional bodies of knowledge in the public domain are bound to multiply. Which means ever more work for patent watchers here in India.

While there is no option but to legally challenge these patents, experts have been arguing that India should undertake a more proactive policy to secure its intellectual property rights in the new world order. Since the most clinching argument is that the knowledge sought to be patented is in the public domain, there has to be a systematic and exhaustive documentation of traditional knowledge.

Onerous and monumental as the task may be -- and in fact it is already being undertaken in bits and pieces -- there can be no evading the grind, given the patent onslaught. In the meanwhile, the temptation to emulate the American patent regime may be overwhelming. Any such change, and the flurry of trivial patents it could inspire, must first be carefully weighed.