Claims that yoga positions ‘are being patented’ are misleading, say patent attorneys

Published: 10 June 2010
By: Peter Prowse

A spokesman for the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) has accused the BBC of ‘turning the facts about yoga positions on their head’.

Rob Jackson, who is a partner at Dehns and a member of CIPA’s Council, says that the BBC has misled the public in the way it trailed a discussion on Radio 4’s Today programme on 9 June. Jackson commented:

On its website, the BBC’s headline for the yoga story was ‘The Indian government is planning to patent nearly a thousand yoga postures'. In fact, what the Indian government is sensibly trying to do is to prevent people from claiming intellectual property rights for what is a traditional, centuries-old practice. In contrast with the BBC, the Guardian got it right on 8 June when it reported: 'The "videographs" are intended to provide irrefutable evidence for anyone hoping to patent a new style of yoga that the Indians got there first'.

Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, a Delhi-based government organisation set up jointly by the ministries of health and science, has explained why his organisation is making video recordings of yoga positions. Gupta said:

Simple text isn't adequate. People are claiming they are doing something different from the original yoga when they are not… There is no intention to stop people practising yoga but nobody should misappropriate yoga and start charging franchise money.