Governance and Micropolitics of Traditional ... - IPRsonline.org

the Poor leader Wirapol Sopa and Witoon Lianchamroon of the NGO BioThai, amongst
others.
The group made the following three demands of the US:
• The US Government must revoke the Jasmati patent and must refuse to grant any
patents on Jasmine rice or other indigenous rice varieties from Thailand;
• Must urgently cancel the trademarks on Jasmine, Jasmati, or other marks that may
confuse the public into believing that such rice is Jasmine Rice;
• Must stop direct and indirect pressures to force developing countries to provide
patent protection of lifeforms (Tanasugarn, 1998).
The Thai government was in the midst of dealing with Thailand’s sizable national economic
crisis at the time, and therefore it is reported that they did not adequately inform the public or
attempt to reconcile their concerns in a timely manner. Consequently, the King of Thailand,
who does not usually become involved in such political matters, granted an audience to
executives of IRRI, where it was believed that the genetic material had been obtained by
Ricetec, Inc. IRRI quickly made a public statement that they did not condone the ‘Jasmati’
trademark, and believed it may ‘mislead consumers that such rice is Jasmine rice, grown in
Thailand, or Basmati rice, grown in other Asian countries’ (Tanasugarn, 1998).
The Jasmati trademark has since been approved for renewal in 2003. Only one challenge has
been made on the trademark by another US Company named Sun Lee, Inc., likely to be a
claim over a similar logo graphic used by both companies. The action was dismissed by the
US Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO, Acc 2006). The Thai Government and Thai companies
to date have not challenged the trademark.
Another interesting US patent has since been identified as Patent Number 5,208,063 assigned
to RiceTec, this time the subject of a process patent that yields fluffy and tender cooked rice
with similar characteristics to that of Jasmine rice (Tanasugarn, 1998). The patent does not
however mention Jasmine rice, and thus did not arouse significant controversy. This does
however arouse curiosity about whether Ricetec, Inc. were intending to use this process to
give the ‘Jasmati’ product characteristics more like Thai Jasmine rice, thus contributing to
further possible deception.
It is a common belief for the Thai people that plants and animals should be excluded from
intellectual property protection. Tanasugarn (1998) argues that many Americans who
complained that the Jasmine rice crisis was blown out of proportion to its actual severity
should understand that the Thais’ resentment towards any attempt to monopolise plants is
base on their agricultural background and heritage. Since rice is the most important crop
culturally and economically for Thailand, the issue became particularly sensitive.
Thailand has since been considering the geographical indication of Jasmine rice, under its
new Act on Protection of Geographical Indications B.E. 2546 (2003) discussed in Section 3.5.
However Thailand has reportedly been under pressure from the US not to provide such
protection, but rather to undertake trademark protection for individual companies that sell and
export the rice. This would clearly be a less favourable option for Thailand. Trademark
protection would not necessarily stop similar misuses of Jasmine rice, but only protect
individual companies.
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