Haldi is healthy!
Haldi is also known as Turmeric, Indian saffron, and Curcuma.
Biological sources: It is known as an oleo- resinous drug, which consists of dried, as well as fresh rhizomes of Curcuma longa or Curcuma domestica, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae.
Geographical sources: India produces 90% of the world’s requirements (especially in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala).
Curcuma is having about 70 species distributed to India, China, Thailand, Italy, Malaysia. Commercially, Curcuma amada, Curcuma aungustifolia, Curcuma aromatics, Curcuma caesia, Curcuma longa are most important.
Color: Yellowish-brown
Odor: Characteristic
Taste: Bitter
Shape: Cylindrical
The plants are grown for 7 to 9 months. Then, rhizomes are harvested, cooked, dried, and then processed for power, oleo-resin, and curcumin.
High-yielding varieties have been developed through tissue culture by clonal propagation.
Fun facts :
#1 The world’s largest producer of Turmeric is the city of Erode in Tamil Nadu (Indian state) and hence Erode is referred to as “Yellow City” or “Turmeric City”.
#2 India is the world’s largest producer of Turmeric and also the world’s largest consumer of Turmeric.
Turmeric has a wide range of uses in many fields ranging from medicine to cosmetics. A few uses of Turmeric are:
- Anti-arthritic agent
- Litmus in chemical tests
- Anti-inflammatory agent
- Antioxidant
- Prevention of Alzheimer’s disease
- Prevention of Cancer
- Natural dye
- Medicines
- Cosmetics
- Culinary
- Treatment of Depression and anxiety
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Immunity booster
- Neuroprotective
Turmeric is the indigenous product of India which has been used for ages. The traditional knowledge about the products like this is developed, sustained, and passed on from generation to generation within a community, which forms a cultural identity or spiritual identity. Protection of this traditional knowledge is a very important aspect in a developing country like India, which should never leave it behind. The concerns grow about the economically and socially damaging impact of this legal bio-piracy.
The Turmeric case
In the year 1995, two American researchers of Indian origin Suman K.Das and Hari Har P.Cohly of the University of Mississippi Medical Centre granted a US patent for “promoting healing of a wound by administering Turmeric to a patient afflicted with the wound,” for using turmeric as medicine in “wound healing.” This means they attained the complete legal monopoly rights for the usage of turmeric in wound healing and any other country to use the same should apply for permission to license.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) filed a re-examination case challenging the Novelty on grounds of the prior art and public use. But CSIR did not succeed in providing the documentary evidence immediately. It took two years to provide documentary evidence of traditional knowledge including a few ancient Sanskrit texts and 32 different extracts from various journals including The Ayurvedic Pharmacopeia of India.
In 1997, the USPTO rejected all the six claims of the patent as anticipated by the CSIR and the patent was declared invalid.
The University of Mississippi Medical Centre later assigned new inventors to further pursue the case on the grounds of “the powder and paste had different physical properties i.e., bioavailability and absorbability, and therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would not expect, with any reasonable degree of certainty, that a powdered material would be useful in the same application as a paste of the same material. They further mentioned that the oral administration was available only with honey, and honey itself is considered to be having wound healing properties.”
However, the USPTO rejected this reassignment and stated that the powder and paste were equivalent in forms as stated by CSIR in their references. The claims were rejected again the second time in 1997, and in 1998 the re-examination certificate was issued signifying the end of the case.
This case is considered as a landmark ruling which hailed as a first patent re-examination case based on the presentation of traditional knowledge. After such cases, the IP has acknowledged the importance of documentation of indigenous traditional knowledge and India is playing a major role in defense for its protection within the existing IP system. This helps in gaining commercial protection rights over the knowledge traditionally obtained. India considered this process of documentation of traditional knowledge very seriously and launched a searchable database of traditional medicine known as Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which can be used as a piece of evidence for prior art by patent agents and examiners when assessing the patent applications. In 2007, e- filing of applications is made available to bring the Indian IP regime in accordance with the International requirements.
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