Odishatv Bureau
(image) New Delhi: India has made available a database describing 1,300 yoga postures and videography of 200 popular among these as part of efforts to prevent patent pirates from exploiting it for commercial purposes.

Scientists at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have scoured through 16 ancient texts, including Patanjali Yoga Sutra and decribed 1300 yoga postures, a senior official said.

These will be made available to international patent offices through the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), TKDL Director V K Gupta told reporters here. He said as part of phase II, 20 more ancients texts would be referred and more yoga postures would be described and put up on the digital library.

"We are making available the 30-40 most popular yogaasanas in the open domain. The rest would be available only to patent offices," Gupta said.

In the United States alone, the patent authorities have issued more than 130 yoga-related patents, 150 copyrights and 2,300 trademarks related to the ancient practice. Today, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) entered into an agreement with TKDL that would grant it access to the rich resource on traditional knowledge.

The `Access Agreement` was signed by Gupta and TomokiSawai, Director, International Affairs Division of the JPO.

India had earlier signed similar agreements with United States Patent & Trademark Office, European Patent Office, German Patent Office, Patent Office of Australia, Canada Patent Office (CIPO) and United Kingdom Trademark & Patent Office (UKPTO), during the last two years.

The agreement signed with EPO in particular has resulted into remarkable success in preventing bio-piracy of Indian traditional knowledge at EPO.

The TKDL database includes 54 authoritative textbooks on ayurvedic medicine, nearly 1,50,000 ayurvedic, unani and siddha medicines. It is being used as a ready reckoner by patent examiners to compare patent applications with existing traditional knowledge.

The information on traditional knowledge can be read in German, Japanese, English, French ans Spanish.

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