Re: India Patenting Yoga Moves to Battle “Patent Pirates”

[Alec Aakesson]

Namaskar Deborah,

Thanks for sending this.  It is a unfortunate that some "Yoga Teachers" (if you can call them that) feel that they can own asanam.  Was it Begram who started this?  Boy what ego's.

Cheers,

Alec

On Feb 25, 2009, at 11:24 PM, perry wrote:

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Asa Perry

To: perry

Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:48 PM

Subject: India Patenting Yoga Moves to Battle “Patent Pirates”

If you’re one of the millions of people practicing yoga for mental and physical health, you may soon run into legal trouble: a lot of the traditional poses are being patented and trademarked by Western yoga teachers.

So, India is fighting back: it has set up a team of yoga gurus and scientists to identify and patent all ancient yoga positions or asanas to stop "patent pirates."

… as the number of Western yoga teachers has grown, there has been a steady increase in patent applications claiming each pose in their class is not part of the ancient discipline of mind and body, but their own unique invention. In the United States alone, there have been more than 130 yoga-related patents, 150 copyrights and 2,300 trademarks. Now India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library is being made available to patents offices throughout the world so they can establish whether the claim is a genuine innovation or "prior art" from Indian systems of medicine.

[...] The attempt by US teachers to patent traditional poses has caused disbelief and anger in India, where it has been practiced for around 6,000 years.

"Copyrights over yoga postures and trademarks on yoga tools have become rampant in the West. Till now, we have traced 130 yoga-related patents in the US. We hope to finish putting on record at least 1500 yoga postures by the end of 2009," said Dr V.P Gupta, of the CSIR, who created the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.

Crazy huh?
Asa

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[Leslie LaChance]

Hi all,

  Hmm, this whole patent business poses some interesting implications for karma, eh?  Seems the greedy patent seekers aren't really getting "The Big Yoga" as Cora and Judith like to call it.  Judith and Cora both believe that yoga isn't yoga until you give it away.  Isn't one of the translations of Patanjali's first yoga Sutra "Now it is time for the yoga to be shared" ?  In fact, I can't find a single Sutra that tells us to go running to the patent office. 

Deborah, do you know the original source of this article?

Shantih,
Leslie

[Kim Eisdorfer]

I think it is absurd that someone thinks they have some right to say how I can and can not position my body.

Kim Eisdorfer

ki...@comcast.net

[perry]

Yes I figure they are angry at Bikram for saying he patented his yoga poses. Crazy, huh?

[perry]

Good points, Leslie! It is for sure that their yoga isn't the real yoga of Patanjali. My son sent it & I will try to find out from him where he found it & get back to you.

Deborah

[perry]

I totally agree but when the American court ruled that Bikram owned the poses he copyrighted they set all this in motion for India to be angry. YA sent the schools info about the complaint & threat from India several months ago. Guess we will see where it goes. Next thing we will be paying royalties as we teach. Crazy!  

----- Original Message -----

From: Kim Eisdorfer

To: yoga...@googlegroups.com