Colgate Patents Traditional Indian Tooth-cleaning Powder Despite It Being Used For Thousands Of Years
from the locking-up-knowledge dept
Over the years, we've seen a number of stories of big companies going into various countries, finding "traditional" and "herbal" remedies, and then figuring out ways to patent them. The latest such example, sent in by sinsi, involves Colgate "patenting" (in the US) a tooth-cleaning powder based on a recipe that has been used in India for "thousands" of years according to officials there. The patent itself (7,736,629) is for a "red herbal dentrifice" and, if you read the claims, it seems clear that they're just patenting a "recipe" of sorts, which alone seems ridiculous enough. But when you add in the fact that it's been used so widely in traditional Indian society, it gets even sillier. The whole thing appears to be yet another example of companies trying to use patent laws to lock up widely known knowledge... with the Patent Office assisting.
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Filed Under: india, patents, toothpaste, traditional remedies
Companies: colgate
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The Ultimate
Uh....The Ultimate in Prior Art anyone? hello??
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Re: The Ultimate
They did have "thousands" of years to do it, you know!
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Re: The Ultimate
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Where is Ron?
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Re: Where is Ron?
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Re: Where is Ron?
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Re: Re: Where is Ron?
I think Ron's already achieved the latter.
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Re: Re: Re: Where is Ron?
From the standpoint of the one writing the Eternal Signature (which can only occur during a "Stupidity Singularity"), the signature appears to go on forever (technically, it expands in every direction at once).
From the standpoint of one reading the Eternal Signature, assuming one is not standing within a "Stupidity Singularity", or a black hole of dumbness, the signature appears always to have an ending, but one never seems to be able to reach it (this is due to the simple Helmetian Equation: RS = Sig * D^2, or Reading Speed equals Signature Size times Despair squared). An interesting side effect is that, should one reach a level of despair so deep that RS, Reading Speed, stops completely, Despair levels return to zero and, here's the most amazing part, the Signature Size is reduced completely to ZERO!
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Re:
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Simple solution
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Kindof like trademarking the ©...
:)
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Re: Kindof like trademarking the ©...
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Re:
A) Getting a patent revoked takes years.
B) Patents are used as legal bludgeons until someone with enough cash to fight lawsuits in court shows up.
C) Getting patents revoked during a lawsuit is a crap-shoot, but is unfortunately the most reliable means of doing so.
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Really?
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Re: Really?
"11. The composition of claim 1, further comprising one or more nonbotanical ingredients independently selected from fluoride ion sources, stannous ion sources, zinc ion sources, antibacterial agents, anti bacterial enhancing agents, antioxidants, sialagogues, breath freshening agents, antiplaque agents, anticalculus agents, anti-inflammatory agents, desensitizing agents, whitening agents, analgesics and nutrients.
12. The composition of claim 11, comprising a fluoride ion source selected from the group consisting of potassium, sodium and ammonium fluorides and monofluorophosphates, calcium fluoride, barium fluoride, zinc fluoride, stannous fluoride, cuprous fluoride, indium fluoride and combinations thereof.
13. The composition of claim 11, comprising an antibacterial agent selected from the group consisting of triclosan, parabens, cetylpyridinium salts and combinations thereof.
14. The composition of claim 11, comprising an antibacterial enhancing agent selected from the group consisting of polycarboxylate polymers, PVME/MA copolymers, PVPA, silicone polymers and copolymers, chitosan and combinations thereof."
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Re: Re: Really?
The sole independent claim in this patent is:
1. A tooth powder composition comprising:
(a) calcium carbonate having properties of particle size and angularity effective to provide mild abrasivity to dental enamel, wherein the particle size is selected from the group consisting of about 0.5 to about 30 μm and about 1 to about 15 μm;
(b) an effective amount of a red iron oxide of low abrasivity which imparts a red color to the composition; and
(c) a herbal component comprising at least one botanical agent or extract thereof,
wherein the calcium carbonate and red iron oxide are present in a weight ratio selected from the group consisting of about 5:1 to about 100:1 and about 10:1 to about 50:1.
If the above "tooth powder" has been around for as long as stated in the article, then it should be a relatively easy matter for someone to come forth and identify such a tooth powder.
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Re: Re: Re: Really?
The fact that it isn't sold in your everyday U.S. grocery store doesn't mean that it hasn't existed before. Apparently many Indians have been using it and Colgate stole the idea and patented it. Nothing really new, pharmaceutical corporations steal chemicals from herbs that are used for medical purposes and patent them.
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"India is in the process of creating 34 million webpages to document its ancient medicinal techniques to stop them from being claimed by foreign profiteers."
It's about time. FINALLY!!! and I completely agree with this move. This nonsense of U.S. pharmaceutical corporations patenting ingredients and chemicals isolated from medicinal plants used for thousands of years by indigenous people has been going on for far too long. The indigenous people are the ones who figured out that the plant has medicinal properties, not the pharmaceutical corporations, and the pharmaceutical corporations simply piggy back off of the work of others.
Ideally, patents should be abolished or at least substantially diminished. The pharmaceutical industry is arguably one of the least innovative in existence (it used to be more innovative back before patents got such a stronghold over it) and patents are partly responsible.
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However, reading the patent, it seems to be something else. I am not a chemical engineer, but it seems the crux is using red iron oxide (which is apparently less abrasive than other candidate materials) to color normal toothpaste to look like herbal toothpaste, making it more attractive to Indian customers. I don't know what traditional herbal dentifrices included to get that red color, but I doubt they did it just for the color. On the other hand, red iron oxide is essentially rust, not any exotic chemical, so it's quite possible it was a traditional ingredient.
BTW, you can try to make it sound frivolous by calling it a "recipe", but that's exactly what all chemical, material or drug-related patents essentially are.
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Want to know what the ingredient is to that fancy whitening activated by sun irradiation(ultraviole light) is?
Bleach
How royalty whitned their teeth in the past?
Using baking soda and strawberries.
Also baking soda was one of the ingredients for homemade toothpaste.
I'm no chemist, but the more I learn about how things were done in the past the more silly I think those IP system is, it is all about controlling the market for the benefit of a few people who wouldn't think twice to leave the rest hanging out in the cold.
That got to be a better way to do things.
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Circular reference
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biopiracy
http://www1.american.edu/ted/turmeric.htm
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i wonder
Now heres the rub....The patent would be on patents, therefore the patent office would be an 'interested party' meaning the patent office couldn't object to the patent as it would be promoting its own interests above those of the applicant.....would they have to:
a) just approve the patent and pay a fee everytime someone applies for a patent
b) refuse the patent and possibly face the most bizarre lawsuit ever
c) collapse in the corner crying like a small child with its fingers in its ears, hoping it will all go away!
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Re: i wonder
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http://www.pioneerthinking.com/teeth1.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& q=toothpaste+home+recipes
The downside is that there is not fluorine in it and that is the only thing that commercial toothpaste have that homemade recepies don't have.
To whiten teeth just use hydrogen peroxide with baking soda(to make a paste) and brush your teeth with it.
That is how people take control again of their destiny, learning to do the things other do for ya and not falling prey to ridiculous demands, but that also is why IP laws exist to stop you from being able to work for yourself, improve yourself and be capable of saying no.
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chemistry
Have you ever heard of...chemistry? Do you ever actually read these patents? Can you understand what you're reading? Ughhh!
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