Patently Obvious - transcript
COMMENTATOR (COMM): Previously on Life... PATRICIA MATOLENGWE: We need to stand up, we need to organise ourselves; we need to start to secure our own monies and start to be part and parcel of the economy of this country. ANNA TIBAIJUKA: If you listen, most of the problems will be solved by the people themselves - they are the key! MICHAEL PARKES: The definition in my terms of governance is decision-making. Is getting people to be involved in what they want. COMM: In 1873 an international exhibition of inventions in Vienna failed because exhibitors feared their ideas would be stolen and exploited. The fiasco led to a system of legal protection for ideas and inventions - things like copyright, patents and trade secrets. Today, it's the World Intellectual Property Organisation, here in Geneva, that safeguards works of the mind. Works of the mind have become key to world trade. In this new knowledge economy, the World Trade Organisation enforces the law on intellectual property. But can such a set up be fair to everybody? How can it be applied to the billions of people in the developing world? Anil Gupta has made it his life's work to find out. ANIL GUPTA: My commitment is to the creative people - people who are doing something new without any outside help. The skills and knowledge that they have is not prized by the market properly. Knowledge is a resource - if their knowledge was prized property they wouldn't be poor. COMM: Anil Gupta is a professor at the Indian Institute of management in Ahmedabad. His mission: recognition and reward for creative people. It's a mission that takes him all over the world, but it starts here in Gujarat in Western India. ANIL GUPTA: We are trying to trigger the spirit of experimentation which is very crucial for any society to become self-reliant. COMM: Long before the World Trade Organisation was set up, Anil Gupta went in search of grassroots innovators. ANIL GUPTA: Well, we are walking from place to place talking to the farmers - part of which is essentially to discover the local genius which is there in the villages; people who solve their problems through their own genius. COMM: Every six months Anil goes on a pilgrimage, walking from village to village in search of inventions, knowledge and innovation. Khimjibhai is a retired schoolteacher who's been inventing devices for nearly 40 years. KHIMJIBHAI KANADIA (TRANSLATION): This is a "Small Seat". Students have to wait for the bus for quite a long time to go to school or college, at that time they can sit on this so that they don't get tired. This is a kind of cooker. It can save 30-40% of firewood; it also saves time. I have developed this simple cooker for poor people. This is a halt - this is a halt for the women fetching water. If you're tired, then you can shift the burden from head to shoulders by setting these legs on the shoulders. This tool is called "Kittanal". It is useful in nurseries. This tool can fill a bag in one go. This is a sprayer, it consumes less pesticide and it sprays pesticide more effectively. It is easy - even women and children can use it! It's cheap in price so people can buy it. ANIL GUPTA: The innovations that are available with him, only a few have been commercialised by him extensively - and he mentioned about the sprayer for instance - the rest he has done for solving problems for people at large. And if anyone wishes to benefit from them they're most welcome. KHIMJIBHAI KANADIA (TRANSLATION): I am only an inventor. I can develop and give you a model. Based on that, you can get it produced in the market, sell it or use it yourself. You earn. I don't want to earn. I have only one objective and that is to see where people are facing problems. ANIL GUPTA: In the case of [the] sprayer, the patent has been filed essentially to ensure that that technology can be licensed to somebody else who would like to be an entrepreneur. That entrepreneur would like to have the right to exclude others from copying the manufacture of the sprayer. COMM: The patent means an inventor owns the idea. He can sell it as a licence for somebody else to make money from it. But if the idea is a traditional design, then there's the concept of geographical indication: Champagne, for instance, can only come from Champagne - and the same should be true of Patan Patola silk. Patola silk has been woven in Patan, Gujarat for at least 800 years. The perfection involved in its creation is a skill handed down through generations of weaving families. Now that tradition is in danger of dying out. Without protection, the intense effort is becoming hard to justify economically. VINAYAK SALVI: See this is the raw silk -this thread is very thin so we make it eight-ply. This is the loom - loom is very old, more than 50 years. This is the Patola sari and it is traditional, it's not new, new design. To prepare this sari, it takes four months. And the cost of the sari? One lakh 20,000 rupees - it is about 2,800 US dollars. ANIL GUPTA: I think this is a product which has a future and I'm sure has the history of all geographically indicated products. And if Patan Patola silk is known all around, around the world - not only as sari but also the dressing material as a material for various other users -then there could be a global demand for silk fabric dyed with the vegetable dyes. COMM: The Patan Patola silk style is being cheaply imitated elsewhere and unless copyright protection can be applied, to encourage the next generation to continue, the future of the genuine traditional article looks bleak. VINAYAK SALVI: In this period it is very difficult to protect - only we can maintain our work; our quality, our real art. We can do only that. COMM: One form of knowledge is even harder to protect. Most people in the villages rely on traditional healers - and Anil, on his Shodyatra pilgrimage, rewards those who are most highly regarded. 90-year-old Barbad has looked after his village all his life - few can imagine life without him. He refuses all payment for dispensing care, but now there's no one to pass on the knowledge to. ANIL GUPTA: We give them, as a mark of our respect and recognition, a certificate of honour, so that the younger children feel that this is a tradition worth continuing and they will feel encouraged and enthused. COMM: Over 100 km away in the dry North of Gujarat is another healer who Anil particularly reveres. This man thinks he has discovered a cure for diabetes. His remedy is currently being scientifically tested to see if it can be patented. He also knows the antidotes to poisonous pythons. Karimbhai inherited and developed his intimate knowledge of barks, roots, leaves and flowers through his success at curing growing numbers of patients. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): This bark, Mal Kangani, can be used to cure mentally ill people. Its seeds - or if the seeds cannot be found then its bark weighing 100 gm - should be boiled in 500 gm of water till the water is reduced to 50 gm. Give that water to any mentally ill person in two parts and he will be cured in ten days. The knowledge is traditional, my father also had this knowledge - I got my training from him and now my children are also gaining knowledge from me so when they grow up they will also benefit. COMM: Karimbhai used to live here. He was a potter and used to give away his herbal cures because, to him, caring for people has nothing to do with making money from them. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): Human beings who God created are very important to me - no amount of money can be compared with the value of a human life. COMM: The making and dispensing of remedies has become full-time. A burgeoning clientele and the need to encourage his sons now means Karimbhai accepts payment from those who can afford to pay. One rich patient from Mumbai even insisted that he install a phone. Traditional knowledge has become a good way of earning a good living and that fact has interested Karimbhai's sons. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): If you look at it that way, the children really felt they should not lose the knowledge. They all took great care. Knowledge is bigger than money; knowledge protects us and the entire world and it is a great thing. Yes, I have benefited from this but the people who were suffering from different diseases and came to me also benefited - they are all cured. COMM: India, like other developing countries, wants traditional or community knowledge to have legal protection. ANIL GUPTA: I have heard many times that: community knowledge is commonly known to people - how can they be rewarded, how can individuals be recognised? Why should there be asymmetry in terms of our responsibility and in terms of the rights that should belong to the people of that community? But mind you, there is only one Karimbhai in that village. COMM: The village knowledge is being held in trust in a living library. Karimbhai worked with Anil to establish a "Knowledge Forest", a nature reserve to preserve medicinal plants and local biodiversity. The trouble is, the young aren't always so interested. ANIL GUPTA: Young people do not want to emulate their elders - who had tremendous knowledge and conserved these resources for so long. Because they would like to generate more options for them which possibly they might see outside, in the cities maybe. We are trying to identify the local genius - the unsung heroes, the young genius - and we've come across children who, by the age of 12, have been able to identify the main uses for as many as 300 plants. And just because this knowledge is not being valued properly by the education system they are getting dropped out. COMM: Drop out or not, Anil's SRISTI organisation holds biodiversity contests to encourage the young to show off their knowledge of plants. ANIL GUPTA: Here are kids who have a natural aptitude for knowing about environment, ecology and biodiversity and they become drop out. COMM: These contests mean that having lots of knowledge about plant species is seen by everybody else as important - not least because you get lots of prizes. ANIL GUPTA: We do not want children of these eight years to become so-called unskilled labourers. They have tremendous skill - a skill that the whole world needs! You know it's extremely important to remember that the regions that are very rich in biodiversity are extremely poor economically - and one reason why they are poor is because the market is not able to prize the knowledge in which they are rich. COMM: Sometimes that biodiversity knowledge does at least start to pay off. Some farmers have been able to spot very special crop varieties. THAKERSHIBHAI SAVALIYA (TRANSLATION): The nuts of this variety contain more oil and this benefits the millers and the farmers. So we get better prices and the size of the nuts is bigger. COMM: If farmers are investing their own resources in variety selection, could and should patent laws be used to protect and so encourage farmers like Thakershibhai? THAKERSHIBHAI (TRANSLATION): Yes, I should get the return from my invention. I should get that protection. If the cricket team wins, the government gives them many prizes. So why not me? ANIL GUPTA: You know, in a field that there'll be a few million plants, it requires a tremendously discerning eye to notice a plant - one or two plants in field of, full of millions. So you are in a sense concentrating these desirable characteristics over a period of five, seven, eight years. So I would say there is a tremendous investment he has made in selecting this plant and-and developing this into a variety which as become so popular in neighbouring regions that there's a big demand now. COMM: Maltiben fell in love with her disabled husband when she was 16. There's was a hard life of little income but she managed to buy two calves and rear them on farm waste, sugar cane and salt. She ignored convention and developed her own ways of increasing milk production. MALTIBEN CHAUDHARI (TRANSLATION): She is "Sabar", meaning a deer, because when she runs she jumps like a deer. She also gives an amount of milk. Her name is "Kajal", because there is no white spot on her body. This is Krishna - she is a big cow, she gives good milk. She is "Jamuna"- she is named after the name of the holy river of Jamuna. Her name is "Manek" - she is very dear to me like a jewel so her name is Manek. She is just like a jewel so that's why I call her Manek. Her name is "Dhrashna" - she is faultless. She has a calf every year; she has had 12 to 13 calves. She is very healthy; we can't understand how she has given birth so many times. She's never fallen sick. She always takes her food. So we feel from the core of our hearts that this cow should be worshipped. So we named her Dhrashna. Whatever the cattle demands according to nature's laws we should provide it. It is like the relationship between a mother and her small baby who cannot speak. A mother would be able to solve her problems. Whether she is hungry, thirsty, sick - whatever she is suffering from, a mother would soon understand. ANIL GUPTA: Maltiben is an extraordinary woman. She began with two calves, 20, 25 years ago and today Matiben is one of the most efficient, most profitable dairy farmers. She has about 14,000 dollars a year income from her 25 buffaloes. She could do this because she has made small, small innovation - many processes. Right from the sanitation and hygiene that she follows for the animals to improvements in the watering system. She has made a small improvement in each of these processes. So hers is a system level innovation and not just a small technical innovation. COMM: System level innovation is difficult to patent but some inventions are altogether more patently obvious. Bullocks are becoming harder to keep in drought-prone Sauashtra. Asked by villagers, Mansukhbhai saw a way of replacing bullocks with an Enfield motorcycle and a pair of rear wheels to draw a tool bar that can plough, weed or sow seeds. Mansukhbhai was keen to show off his invention but he had to borrow a customer's machine because he's sold all the machines he's made. MANSUKHBHAI (TRANSLATION): I don't mind if people copy my invention, I've still got my customers! COMM: Mansukhbhai doesn't yet worry about patent protection. He can only build 50 machines a year. He says he's glad farmers are benefiting but he does worry his market will be threatened in the future. ANIL GUPTA: Should such an inventor be destined to only dream small? Dream local rather than global? And to expect anyone to dream more at this moment would be naïve on our part because he has not been exposed to anything. So let us not blame him for lack of imagination on his part and lack of dreams about what could - I mean, he could think about a plant like Ford Motors, why not? COMM: One of Anil's innovators is further down the line and seriously ready for manufacture. May 31st, 2001 is an auspicious day for Bhanjibhai and his family. Just arrived from the factory is his production prototype mini tractor. BHANJIBHAI MATHUKIA (TRANSLATION): Because of the hydraulic system time is not wasted while ploughing the fields. This tractor is more convenient for small farmers. Only big farmers can afford big tractors - smaller farmers have smaller fields - so this kind of a small tractor would be within their reach. This tractor is of ten-horse power which the farmers prefer. ANIL GUPTA: You might call it my incorrigible optimism, but I see a great future for this tractor -all over the world - because I don't see anybody looking at this need and my reason for hope is also the fact that this innovation has been designed by a grass roots person, a farmer who knows the problems that arise in the field. COMM: Starting over 12 years ago, Bhanjibhai, his son and his nephews first developed a three-wheel tractor and there followed a whole series of prototypes, many of which were sold to farmers in the village. The local police at one stage impounded one of the tractors because it lacked certification. Banjibhai has accepted the need for professional help. A design consultant has helped redesign the prototype so that it could be certified and is suitable for mass production. ANIL GUPTA: Banjibhai and his nephew and his son kept involved themselves in the process of fabrication. So it was, it was a crucible, so to say, of creativity in which the formal design and the informal design and the formal knowledge and the informal knowledge were blended - together, to make the design that there is now. COMM: But in the global marketplace what are the chances of people like Bhanjibhai reaching the world and selling his mini-tractor? Taking the message with him on his laptop computer, Anil now travels the globe to get justice for rural innovators. But in Geneva intellectual property rights, the World Trade Organisation and the TRIPS agreement present a very different world. ANIL GUPTA: No international law exists that says you should charge - you should fleece your people... COMM: Here it's vested interests, conflicting views and legal terms. Any country wanting to benefit from the World Trade Organisation has to sign up to TRIPS - the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement. The TRIPS agreement was written by the highly industrialised nations, trying to attach value to what is now the most important part of the world trading system: the knowledge economy. Up until now, in the corridors of power concepts like "traditional knowledge" weren't considered relevant. ADRIAN OTTEN, Director, Intellectual Property Division, World Trade Organisation: TRIPS agreement doesn't deal with traditional knowledge as such - the issue was not raised during the TRIPS negotiations by any countries. However, the forms of intellectual property protection which the TRIPS agreement does deal with do provide some means by which local communities, indigenous peoples can protect their traditional knowledge. ANIL GUPTA: These are assumptions about people themselves and the whole scientific enterprise - scientific establishment - will have to become humble, will have to develop humility to join hands with these people. This is probably too much that I'm asking for. FRANCIS GURRY Assistant Director General, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO): Traditional knowledge is the expression of a collectivity of authorship - and how do you ascribe rights, how do you - who enjoys those rights and how do they enforce them? Er, we are very individualistic about our relation to creation or invention - it is owned by a person or indeed a corporation that pays for the research. COMM: The developing nations might want the WTO and WIPO to discuss traditional knowledge but it's only likely to happen as a trade off for a stronger implementation of patent laws - and that's not likely to help Anil. ANIL GUPTA: As someone who believes very strongly in the knowledge of the people and creative potential of the grassroots, I'll try every option possible - for me there's no unreachable. So long as my values are intact, I don't care. You might ask why am I spending time with world business council, then. Well, it's a small corridor of hope which is available here to try whether the corporate leaders will change, but I must be realistic and pragmatic enough to say that I have more faith in civil society than the corporations.
END
COMMENTATOR (COMM): Previously on Life... PATRICIA MATOLENGWE: We need to stand up, we need to organise ourselves; we need to start to secure our own monies and start to be part and parcel of the economy of this country. ANNA TIBAIJUKA: If you listen, most of the problems will be solved by the people themselves - they are the key! MICHAEL PARKES: The definition in my terms of governance is decision-making. Is getting people to be involved in what they want. COMM: In 1873 an international exhibition of inventions in Vienna failed because exhibitors feared their ideas would be stolen and exploited. The fiasco led to a system of legal protection for ideas and inventions - things like copyright, patents and trade secrets. Today, it's the World Intellectual Property Organisation, here in Geneva, that safeguards works of the mind. Works of the mind have become key to world trade. In this new knowledge economy, the World Trade Organisation enforces the law on intellectual property. But can such a set up be fair to everybody? How can it be applied to the billions of people in the developing world? Anil Gupta has made it his life's work to find out. ANIL GUPTA: My commitment is to the creative people - people who are doing something new without any outside help. The skills and knowledge that they have is not prized by the market properly. Knowledge is a resource - if their knowledge was prized property they wouldn't be poor. COMM: Anil Gupta is a professor at the Indian Institute of management in Ahmedabad. His mission: recognition and reward for creative people. It's a mission that takes him all over the world, but it starts here in Gujarat in Western India. ANIL GUPTA: We are trying to trigger the spirit of experimentation which is very crucial for any society to become self-reliant. COMM: Long before the World Trade Organisation was set up, Anil Gupta went in search of grassroots innovators. ANIL GUPTA: Well, we are walking from place to place talking to the farmers - part of which is essentially to discover the local genius which is there in the villages; people who solve their problems through their own genius. COMM: Every six months Anil goes on a pilgrimage, walking from village to village in search of inventions, knowledge and innovation. Khimjibhai is a retired schoolteacher who's been inventing devices for nearly 40 years. KHIMJIBHAI KANADIA (TRANSLATION): This is a "Small Seat". Students have to wait for the bus for quite a long time to go to school or college, at that time they can sit on this so that they don't get tired. This is a kind of cooker. It can save 30-40% of firewood; it also saves time. I have developed this simple cooker for poor people. This is a halt - this is a halt for the women fetching water. If you're tired, then you can shift the burden from head to shoulders by setting these legs on the shoulders. This tool is called "Kittanal". It is useful in nurseries. This tool can fill a bag in one go. This is a sprayer, it consumes less pesticide and it sprays pesticide more effectively. It is easy - even women and children can use it! It's cheap in price so people can buy it. ANIL GUPTA: The innovations that are available with him, only a few have been commercialised by him extensively - and he mentioned about the sprayer for instance - the rest he has done for solving problems for people at large. And if anyone wishes to benefit from them they're most welcome. KHIMJIBHAI KANADIA (TRANSLATION): I am only an inventor. I can develop and give you a model. Based on that, you can get it produced in the market, sell it or use it yourself. You earn. I don't want to earn. I have only one objective and that is to see where people are facing problems. ANIL GUPTA: In the case of [the] sprayer, the patent has been filed essentially to ensure that that technology can be licensed to somebody else who would like to be an entrepreneur. That entrepreneur would like to have the right to exclude others from copying the manufacture of the sprayer. COMM: The patent means an inventor owns the idea. He can sell it as a licence for somebody else to make money from it. But if the idea is a traditional design, then there's the concept of geographical indication: Champagne, for instance, can only come from Champagne - and the same should be true of Patan Patola silk. Patola silk has been woven in Patan, Gujarat for at least 800 years. The perfection involved in its creation is a skill handed down through generations of weaving families. Now that tradition is in danger of dying out. Without protection, the intense effort is becoming hard to justify economically. VINAYAK SALVI: See this is the raw silk -this thread is very thin so we make it eight-ply. This is the loom - loom is very old, more than 50 years. This is the Patola sari and it is traditional, it's not new, new design. To prepare this sari, it takes four months. And the cost of the sari? One lakh 20,000 rupees - it is about 2,800 US dollars. ANIL GUPTA: I think this is a product which has a future and I'm sure has the history of all geographically indicated products. And if Patan Patola silk is known all around, around the world - not only as sari but also the dressing material as a material for various other users -then there could be a global demand for silk fabric dyed with the vegetable dyes. COMM: The Patan Patola silk style is being cheaply imitated elsewhere and unless copyright protection can be applied, to encourage the next generation to continue, the future of the genuine traditional article looks bleak. VINAYAK SALVI: In this period it is very difficult to protect - only we can maintain our work; our quality, our real art. We can do only that. COMM: One form of knowledge is even harder to protect. Most people in the villages rely on traditional healers - and Anil, on his Shodyatra pilgrimage, rewards those who are most highly regarded. 90-year-old Barbad has looked after his village all his life - few can imagine life without him. He refuses all payment for dispensing care, but now there's no one to pass on the knowledge to. ANIL GUPTA: We give them, as a mark of our respect and recognition, a certificate of honour, so that the younger children feel that this is a tradition worth continuing and they will feel encouraged and enthused. COMM: Over 100 km away in the dry North of Gujarat is another healer who Anil particularly reveres. This man thinks he has discovered a cure for diabetes. His remedy is currently being scientifically tested to see if it can be patented. He also knows the antidotes to poisonous pythons. Karimbhai inherited and developed his intimate knowledge of barks, roots, leaves and flowers through his success at curing growing numbers of patients. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): This bark, Mal Kangani, can be used to cure mentally ill people. Its seeds - or if the seeds cannot be found then its bark weighing 100 gm - should be boiled in 500 gm of water till the water is reduced to 50 gm. Give that water to any mentally ill person in two parts and he will be cured in ten days. The knowledge is traditional, my father also had this knowledge - I got my training from him and now my children are also gaining knowledge from me so when they grow up they will also benefit. COMM: Karimbhai used to live here. He was a potter and used to give away his herbal cures because, to him, caring for people has nothing to do with making money from them. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): Human beings who God created are very important to me - no amount of money can be compared with the value of a human life. COMM: The making and dispensing of remedies has become full-time. A burgeoning clientele and the need to encourage his sons now means Karimbhai accepts payment from those who can afford to pay. One rich patient from Mumbai even insisted that he install a phone. Traditional knowledge has become a good way of earning a good living and that fact has interested Karimbhai's sons. KARIMBHAI (TRANSLATION): If you look at it that way, the children really felt they should not lose the knowledge. They all took great care. Knowledge is bigger than money; knowledge protects us and the entire world and it is a great thing. Yes, I have benefited from this but the people who were suffering from different diseases and came to me also benefited - they are all cured. COMM: India, like other developing countries, wants traditional or community knowledge to have legal protection. ANIL GUPTA: I have heard many times that: community knowledge is commonly known to people - how can they be rewarded, how can individuals be recognised? Why should there be asymmetry in terms of our responsibility and in terms of the rights that should belong to the people of that community? But mind you, there is only one Karimbhai in that village. COMM: The village knowledge is being held in trust in a living library. Karimbhai worked with Anil to establish a "Knowledge Forest", a nature reserve to preserve medicinal plants and local biodiversity. The trouble is, the young aren't always so interested. ANIL GUPTA: Young people do not want to emulate their elders - who had tremendous knowledge and conserved these resources for so long. Because they would like to generate more options for them which possibly they might see outside, in the cities maybe. We are trying to identify the local genius - the unsung heroes, the young genius - and we've come across children who, by the age of 12, have been able to identify the main uses for as many as 300 plants. And just because this knowledge is not being valued properly by the education system they are getting dropped out. COMM: Drop out or not, Anil's SRISTI organisation holds biodiversity contests to encourage the young to show off their knowledge of plants. ANIL GUPTA: Here are kids who have a natural aptitude for knowing about environment, ecology and biodiversity and they become drop out. COMM: These contests mean that having lots of knowledge about plant species is seen by everybody else as important - not least because you get lots of prizes. ANIL GUPTA: We do not want children of these eight years to become so-called unskilled labourers. They have tremendous skill - a skill that the whole world needs! You know it's extremely important to remember that the regions that are very rich in biodiversity are extremely poor economically - and one reason why they are poor is because the market is not able to prize the knowledge in which they are rich. COMM: Sometimes that biodiversity knowledge does at least start to pay off. Some farmers have been able to spot very special crop varieties. THAKERSHIBHAI SAVALIYA (TRANSLATION): The nuts of this variety contain more oil and this benefits the millers and the farmers. So we get better prices and the size of the nuts is bigger. COMM: If farmers are investing their own resources in variety selection, could and should patent laws be used to protect and so encourage farmers like Thakershibhai? THAKERSHIBHAI (TRANSLATION): Yes, I should get the return from my invention. I should get that protection. If the cricket team wins, the government gives them many prizes. So why not me? ANIL GUPTA: You know, in a field that there'll be a few million plants, it requires a tremendously discerning eye to notice a plant - one or two plants in field of, full of millions. So you are in a sense concentrating these desirable characteristics over a period of five, seven, eight years. So I would say there is a tremendous investment he has made in selecting this plant and-and developing this into a variety which as become so popular in neighbouring regions that there's a big demand now. COMM: Maltiben fell in love with her disabled husband when she was 16. There's was a hard life of little income but she managed to buy two calves and rear them on farm waste, sugar cane and salt. She ignored convention and developed her own ways of increasing milk production. MALTIBEN CHAUDHARI (TRANSLATION): She is "Sabar", meaning a deer, because when she runs she jumps like a deer. She also gives an amount of milk. Her name is "Kajal", because there is no white spot on her body. This is Krishna - she is a big cow, she gives good milk. She is "Jamuna"- she is named after the name of the holy river of Jamuna. Her name is "Manek" - she is very dear to me like a jewel so her name is Manek. She is just like a jewel so that's why I call her Manek. Her name is "Dhrashna" - she is faultless. She has a calf every year; she has had 12 to 13 calves. She is very healthy; we can't understand how she has given birth so many times. She's never fallen sick. She always takes her food. So we feel from the core of our hearts that this cow should be worshipped. So we named her Dhrashna. Whatever the cattle demands according to nature's laws we should provide it. It is like the relationship between a mother and her small baby who cannot speak. A mother would be able to solve her problems. Whether she is hungry, thirsty, sick - whatever she is suffering from, a mother would soon understand. ANIL GUPTA: Maltiben is an extraordinary woman. She began with two calves, 20, 25 years ago and today Matiben is one of the most efficient, most profitable dairy farmers. She has about 14,000 dollars a year income from her 25 buffaloes. She could do this because she has made small, small innovation - many processes. Right from the sanitation and hygiene that she follows for the animals to improvements in the watering system. She has made a small improvement in each of these processes. So hers is a system level innovation and not just a small technical innovation. COMM: System level innovation is difficult to patent but some inventions are altogether more patently obvious. Bullocks are becoming harder to keep in drought-prone Sauashtra. Asked by villagers, Mansukhbhai saw a way of replacing bullocks with an Enfield motorcycle and a pair of rear wheels to draw a tool bar that can plough, weed or sow seeds. Mansukhbhai was keen to show off his invention but he had to borrow a customer's machine because he's sold all the machines he's made. MANSUKHBHAI (TRANSLATION): I don't mind if people copy my invention, I've still got my customers! COMM: Mansukhbhai doesn't yet worry about patent protection. He can only build 50 machines a year. He says he's glad farmers are benefiting but he does worry his market will be threatened in the future. ANIL GUPTA: Should such an inventor be destined to only dream small? Dream local rather than global? And to expect anyone to dream more at this moment would be naïve on our part because he has not been exposed to anything. So let us not blame him for lack of imagination on his part and lack of dreams about what could - I mean, he could think about a plant like Ford Motors, why not? COMM: One of Anil's innovators is further down the line and seriously ready for manufacture. May 31st, 2001 is an auspicious day for Bhanjibhai and his family. Just arrived from the factory is his production prototype mini tractor. BHANJIBHAI MATHUKIA (TRANSLATION): Because of the hydraulic system time is not wasted while ploughing the fields. This tractor is more convenient for small farmers. Only big farmers can afford big tractors - smaller farmers have smaller fields - so this kind of a small tractor would be within their reach. This tractor is of ten-horse power which the farmers prefer. ANIL GUPTA: You might call it my incorrigible optimism, but I see a great future for this tractor -all over the world - because I don't see anybody looking at this need and my reason for hope is also the fact that this innovation has been designed by a grass roots person, a farmer who knows the problems that arise in the field. COMM: Starting over 12 years ago, Bhanjibhai, his son and his nephews first developed a three-wheel tractor and there followed a whole series of prototypes, many of which were sold to farmers in the village. The local police at one stage impounded one of the tractors because it lacked certification. Banjibhai has accepted the need for professional help. A design consultant has helped redesign the prototype so that it could be certified and is suitable for mass production. ANIL GUPTA: Banjibhai and his nephew and his son kept involved themselves in the process of fabrication. So it was, it was a crucible, so to say, of creativity in which the formal design and the informal design and the formal knowledge and the informal knowledge were blended - together, to make the design that there is now. COMM: But in the global marketplace what are the chances of people like Bhanjibhai reaching the world and selling his mini-tractor? Taking the message with him on his laptop computer, Anil now travels the globe to get justice for rural innovators. But in Geneva intellectual property rights, the World Trade Organisation and the TRIPS agreement present a very different world. ANIL GUPTA: No international law exists that says you should charge - you should fleece your people... COMM: Here it's vested interests, conflicting views and legal terms. Any country wanting to benefit from the World Trade Organisation has to sign up to TRIPS - the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement. The TRIPS agreement was written by the highly industrialised nations, trying to attach value to what is now the most important part of the world trading system: the knowledge economy. Up until now, in the corridors of power concepts like "traditional knowledge" weren't considered relevant. ADRIAN OTTEN, Director, Intellectual Property Division, World Trade Organisation: TRIPS agreement doesn't deal with traditional knowledge as such - the issue was not raised during the TRIPS negotiations by any countries. However, the forms of intellectual property protection which the TRIPS agreement does deal with do provide some means by which local communities, indigenous peoples can protect their traditional knowledge. ANIL GUPTA: These are assumptions about people themselves and the whole scientific enterprise - scientific establishment - will have to become humble, will have to develop humility to join hands with these people. This is probably too much that I'm asking for. FRANCIS GURRY Assistant Director General, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO): Traditional knowledge is the expression of a collectivity of authorship - and how do you ascribe rights, how do you - who enjoys those rights and how do they enforce them? Er, we are very individualistic about our relation to creation or invention - it is owned by a person or indeed a corporation that pays for the research. COMM: The developing nations might want the WTO and WIPO to discuss traditional knowledge but it's only likely to happen as a trade off for a stronger implementation of patent laws - and that's not likely to help Anil. ANIL GUPTA: As someone who believes very strongly in the knowledge of the people and creative potential of the grassroots, I'll try every option possible - for me there's no unreachable. So long as my values are intact, I don't care. You might ask why am I spending time with world business council, then. Well, it's a small corridor of hope which is available here to try whether the corporate leaders will change, but I must be realistic and pragmatic enough to say that I have more faith in civil society than the corporations.
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