Major Victory Against Neo-colonial Patents

Patents are bad enough, because they enclose knowledge. But when they steal that knowledge from the lore of traditional medicine, it's a double crime - adding a dash of neo-colonialism to the mix. So here's some good news on that front:

The Opposition Division of the European Patent Office (EPO) has today revoked a patent granted to Dr. Willmar Schwabe (Schwabe) in its entirety. The patent was opposed by the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) from South Africa acting on behalf of a rural community in Alice, in the Eastern Cape, in collaboration with the Swiss anti-biopiracy watchdog, the Berne Declaration.

The patent was in respect of a method for producing extracts of Pelargonium sidoides and Pelargonium reniforme to make Schwabe’s blockbuster cough and colds syrup, Umckaloabo. It was revoked because the Opposition Division found that the patent did not satisfy the requirements of the European Patent Convention dealing with inventiveness.

What's remarkable here is that not only was the patent revoked, but that it was an African organsiation, acting on behalf of a rural community, that achieved it. Let's hope it's the first of many. (Via @GMWatch.)

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Microsoft's Neo-Colonialism in Africa

Microsoft is stitching up Africa in the cruellest way:

Microsoft is on its way to becoming a dominant brand in Africa, mainly through the deals made with various governments.

“We are very conscious of the environment in which we do business, where our employees and customers live, we always try to empower those communities," said Dr Diarra.

“Africa is really the last frontier in not only developing technology that is specific to people's needs, but eventually even developing new business models that will enable the emergence of local software industries, such as young people who have the skills to be able to write their own applications for their own community,” he said.

Fine words, but the reality is that if those "local software industries" do indeed emerge, they will be formed from programmers who are completely dependent on American software for the livelihood: it's neo-colonialism, pure and simple.

As the free software advocate puts it in the same story:

“Today we're seeing growing open-source programmer, developer communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries.

“Clearly, if you have this informal programming sector coming up, access to source code is almost critical if they are going to be able to take advantage of these new tools that are emerging," he said.

Exactly; pretending anything else is cynical in the extreme, condemning, as it does, Africa to a wasted generation of software development - something it can ill afford.