IP: curry patent again

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:30:38 -0700
> From: Bryan Ross <rossb001 () san rr com>
> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
> To: Dead Fukuzawa Society <fukuzawa () ucsd edu>, Rausch Paul 
> <rausch () hawaii edu>,
>         Patricia Polansky <polansky () hawaii edu>
> Subject: curry patent again
>
>  NOVEMBER 19, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 46
>  The Hot Topic of Patents  Now - the Japanese curry, pizza and hot dog
> By MICHELE ZACK Los Angeles
>
> Who invented curry? The fiery dish is mainly synonymous with India, but
> a controversy is now building up over two Japanese businessmen who have
> shoved culinary history aside and lodged a patent application claiming
> they are the true inventors. "Patent buccaneers" and "bio-pirates" are
> two of the more polite reactions from Indians to the audacious bid for
> fame and riches by entrepreneurs Hirayama Makoto and Ohashi Sachiyo.
> Their claim, titled "Cooking of Curry" (file number JP7289214), was made
> under an application by House Foods Corp., one of Japan's top food and
> drink companies. It says: "The cooking of curry is carried out by mixing
> ingredients such as onion, potato, carrot and meat . . . with water . .
> . extracted spices at least containing the extract of turmeric, cumin
> and coriander, heating over a slow fire for 10-20 minutes after boiling,
> adding wheat flour roux and curry powder or adding curry roux and
> heating until the mixture becomes viscous."
>
> As cheeky as they may appear to be, the people at House Foods are not
> the only ones jumping on Japan's love affair with the curry. On the
> European Patent Office's worldwide patent list are dozens of other
> Japanese applications, from curry yogurt and curry-sprinkled rice to
> low-fat curry sauce, hamburger curry, instant curry, curry soup and
> curry crackers. Not content with getting Indians hot under the collar,
> the Japanese have also taken aim at Italy.
>
> More than 80 Japanese firms claim to have come up with either the pizza
> or its cooking process - for example, patent number JP8116934. Aided by
> a diagram with numbered parts, "inventor" Komiya Michinobu says: "This
> pizza is constituted by forming a part coated with a pizza sauce and an
> uncoated part 4a on the surface of a required pizza dough 1, baking the
> resultant dough so as to puff the uncoated part 4a upward. The resultant
> pizza is capable of not only remarkably manifesting a voluminous feeling
> but also enriching decorativeness, elegance . . ."
>
> Lousy prose, but you get the point. Taira Yoshinobu's hot dog
> (JP9019275) is so simple, you wonder why no one in the U.S. ever thought
> of shoving a sausage in a bread roll before he claims to have come up
> with the idea in 1997. His application begins: "Food ingredient 3 is
> inserted into a food ingredient-housing cylindrical part 2 . . ."
>
>  About 400,000 patent applications are filed in Japan every year, 30% of
> which are successful. The phenomenon is a large and growing headache for
> the Japan Patent Office, which clearly needs more guidelines. It says:
> "One cause of these problems is that Japan has not established methods
> to appropriately evaluate intellectual property." Globally, the issue is
> regulated by the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement,
> which gives exclusive rights for 20 years to patent-holders. On products
> it rules: "The exclusive rights conferred will prevent others from the
> acts of making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing for these
> purposes that product." On processes: "The exclusive rights conferred
> will prevent others from the act of using the process, and from the acts
> of using, offering for sale, selling or importing for these purposes at
> least the product obtained directly by that process."
>
> Behind the legalese is a clear message - that anyone who secures a
> patent for, say, fish-head curry will have the right to assign the
> patent, draw up licensing contracts . . . and get rich. There are
> exceptions, usually limiting rights to certain countries only. The World
> Trade Organization has the question of patents on its agenda for its
> Seattle conference Nov. 30. Judging by what's happening in Japan, it
> should produce some heated exchanges.
>
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