Strategic Opportunities in Managing IPRs: 
Biodiversity, Drug Industry and Emerging Options 

Anil K Gupta

Indian drug industry provides an outstanding example of its distinctive contribution in adapting global technologies for domestic demand through adaptive research in formulation of drugs.  This has meant availability of large number of drugs at low cost.  Having developed an expertise in reverse engineering, somehow we started to believe that we were capable of being outstanding only in this field of knowledge.  Developing new drugs not just for Indian but global market apparently was beyond our reach.  Consequently, a dominant opinion against product patent regime got developed in our country.  However, success of Dr.Reddy’s lab and Ranbaxy in vying for global space for the locally developed technologies has started to change the mind set.  Simultaneously, new partnerships between academic and commercial organisations within and outside the country have started emerging.  Many small companies believed that given their limited resources, it will be almost impossible for them to do world class R&D and pursue the path of prosperity through protection  of intellectual property rights.  

In this paper, I first discuss the key concept of IPR and its relevance for our conditions.  I particularly refer to the opportunities that exist globally with specific reference to patent expiration, biodiversity based drug development.  I also review the recent trends in filing patents based on herbal resources in US Patent Office during last two years compared to the trends apparent in 1992.

In part two I review the inter-organisational strategies for R and D  drawing upon the  excellence in informal sector as well as formal sector.  Finally,  I summarise the strategy that Indian pharmaceutical industry could pursue for global competitive advantage through protection of IPRs without compromising with the goal of universal health for all.  

PART  I

The basics of IPR

Patent granted by government to an inventor/s signify a contract.  In lieu of disclosing the invention, the society allows the inventor to monopolise the commercial returns from the application of the invention for 17 - 20 years.  If the inventor chose to use trade secret route of commercialising one’s innovation, the growth of the ideas may suffer.  Further, simultaneous development of innovations similar to one’s own may emerge and be protected affecting the interest of the company or the inventor having the trade secrets.  Further patenting does not necessarily imply that one should necessarily commercialise.  There are examples where companies as well as individuals have given away the rights for wider application of patented technology to WHO or to some other institutions.  Thus, if someone opposes patent on ground of its excludability, then one should be clear as to whether the exclusion is deliberate or is it inherent in the nature of instrument.  Patents can exclude anybody else from benefiting from the protected technology without a proper licence from the patentee.  But this exclusion is subject to the wish and preference of the inventor.  

Does patenting inhibit research and development?  It could if some of the important processes and products crucial for derivative R&D are sought to be used without due authorisation.  Otherwise, the only restriction a patent would impose on derivative R&D is to ensure that either the improvement is made available to the original patenteee through a cross licence or it should be proved that improvement can be operationalised without infringing the rights of the original patentee - a case very difficult to prove.  In  the case of Zantac discussed herein later, similar dispute had arisen.

What can be patented?

Any product or process or design which involves an inventive, novel and non-obvious step capable of industrial application can be patented.  

New

Old

New

Method

Material

Old

New

Old

Use

Figure 1

(Gupta, 1989, 1995, Gupta et al, 1996) 

At least one cell out of the six should be new.  That is, a known compound extracted or developed by known method but for a new use can be patented for that purpose.  Therefore if a known compound from neem, say azadirachtin extracted by a known process has been used for curing cancer - an unknown use, the patent can be granted for that purpose.  

The intellectual property includes copy right, trade mark, industrial design, design of computer chips, etc.  But in this paper, the discussion is restricted to product or process patents dealing with drugs only.  Before describing the opportunities that exist  in developing R and D strategies suitable for filing new patents,  I will deal with the opportunities that exist in terminal patents i.e. patents on the verge of expiry.

Opportunities in Expiring Patents:

The opportunities exist not merely to exploit intellectual property for new products and processes but also in benefiting from the technologies of which the patents have expired or are close to expiration. Two of the celebrated cases deal with one of the largest selling ulcer medicine called as Zantac by Glaxo Welcome (GW) and Losec by Swedish company Astra AB.

Normally, companies having a profitable patent would try to extend its life beyond seventeen or twenty years by various derivative patents which protect different hitherto undisclosed elements of the expiring patent.  This way, it becomes difficult for any other company to benefit from the expiry of the patent.  

The case of Zantac:

Novopharm is one of the major generic drug makers in North America.  They announced in July last year their plans to start manufacturing of the generic version of Zantac (R.).   Glaxo had filed an appeal against the US Federal Court decision that a generic version of their drug could be produced without infringing on their second patent.  Novopharm planned to use the anti-trust and unfair competition laws in US to fight any restriction.  GW’s original patent Form 1 would have expired in December 1995 and Form 2 in 2002. Novopharm submitted their Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) to the Food and Drug Administration to produce Form 1 Generic Zantac(R.).  In response to this ANDA, GW filed a law suit in July 1994 and charged Novopharm both with patent infringement as well as trade secret theft.  Originally, the expiration date of December 1995 of GW’s patent was extended due to GATT.  If the current legislation on GATT is passed by US Congress, a generic manufacturer having made substantial investment to market their product could be allowed to do so during the GATT extension period.  Incidentally, the manufacturers of Zantac in New Zealand  got five years extension from the date 27 July, 1988 and similar extension has been granted for eight years to Astra Loscc.  In the case of Zantac, the generic manufacturers requested the Commissioner of Patents who turned down their appeal.  The pharmacists or wholesalers were allowed to sell or dispense generic ranitidine product after 17 November, 1996 provided it was made or imported prior to 17 May, 1996.  

In the case of Astra, the Judge found that a total of ten years were lost after the patent during the development and getting FDA approval.    The Judge decided to extend the patent on Omeprazole because it qualified as an `exceptional’ invention under all three approaches, viz., (i) exceptional inventive ingenuity plus public utility, (ii) exceptional benefit to the public and (iii) inherently requiring longer than usual to get to the market place and therefore decided that an extension of eight years would be appropriate to enable the patentee to be adequately remunerated.  The patent No.1902303 will expire on 18 April, 2003.  

Profits worth 400 million pounds being at stake GW, decided to use different strategies for settlement of the problem in different case in different countries.  Hours before the US trial was to start in 1995 GW, agreed to settle dispute with Genepharm - a generic manufacturer, by paying `a  monetary sum .... not considered as material to the GW group’.   GW also agreed to sell Genepharm the active ingredient of Zantac for marketing in UK and Australia from 1997.  GW earns two billion dollars from US sales.  Normally, a generic competition slashes the sale of the branded product by upto 85 per cent.  In September 1997 shares of Astra dipped when the market remained unconvinced of the company’s claim that new compound   perprazole would compensate for the losses expected after the expiry of Loscc.  The company had already applied for patents on perprazole in sixty countries.  For the existing drug including Omeprazole, Astra had developed a new tablet form called as multi unit pilot system (MUPS) for which a process patent had been applied in all major markets.  

The strategy of Astra was to protect LOSEC drug not just through product patent but also through  patents covering formulation, use, intermediates, and processes. These patents might expire between 2005 and 2016.

Lee Adson( 1997) summarises several strategies used by drug industry  to safeguard its intellectual property: (a) alter a drug in such a way that it requires a new dosage and then market it as a superior product, (b) create a new delivery system for the same drug, ( c ) switch the drug with FDA’s approval  to over-the-counter non prescription formulation. 

Several small companies developed a new niche by developing smart delivery systems for existing drugs. Adson describes the case of Samour , Chairman and scientific Director of Macro Chem corp. which developed a chemical that increased the absorption of certain drugs through skin.  With this strategy, they do not have to develop statistics for effectiveness of the drug. The existing data is used to file he patent and then commercial arrangements are often struck with original drug formulator so as to share the profits. Similarly the strategy of converting prescription drug to over-the-counter drug has been used very effectively in past. Head and Shoulder off the shelf dandruff shampoo was once a patented drug prescribed by dermatologists. Advil like wise was patented drug. If all these strategies do not work, the pharma companies set up in house  generic drug companies to make and market generic drugs not just their own but also developed by others as done by Merck for instance. That obviously means that smaller companies hav eto be so much more smarter. Patent on Valium expired in 1985 and as Adson describes, the strategy of Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc.’s was to meet the burgeoning demand for generic with slight price increase, taking a hit on market share   first and then decrease  the prices. The after-glow of the brand loyalty helps in compensating decline in profits later with some early increase in profits due to price increase.

Companies try to use political muscle to extend the patent life and thus the role of public of watchdog groups is very important. The case of Proctor and Gamble illustrates this dimension. P and G won FDA approval after twelve years of “study” and filed for extension of patent protection for this period to restore lost time. US congress passed a special patent term restoration for Olestra - the fat substitute developed by P and G.  It was so profitable that company went on seeking more and more extension till public objected and the patent was allowed to expire ( Adson, 1997:27). It is argued that 206 year old patent system has contributed to give US economy the competitive edge which several other countries are trying to gain fast.  The issue is whither Indian companies will remain also -ran or will they run to win the race?

Where does our competitive edge lie?

Building Upon Biodiversity and Associated Knowledge Systems:

India has about ten percent of the world’s biodiversity wealth but its share in total world trade based on biodiversity as per the recent Exim Ban report ( 1997) is negligible. Ayurvedic medicines export seems also to fluctuate. In 1993-94, our major exports were aimed at USA but in 1994-95 it was Russia which imported the maximum from us. Our exports have steadily increased at about 30 per cent per annum while  imports have recently come down ( Exim Bank Report, 1997). The expenditure on R & D by Indian companies has been abysmally low, exceptions apart. As against world average of 12-15 per cent of expenditure on  R & D, Indian companies hardly spend about 1-2 per cent on an average. No intellectual property worth any thing can be generated with this kind of investment.

Discussions with Keith Richardson of Derwent  Patent Data bases ( one of the leading patent information providers on internet)  revealed some interesting problems in analysing the situation with regard to patents on herbal drugs. None of the classification systems used by them (US,IPC,Derwent Classifications) have a classification for this
category of knowledge. There is no way to reliably search via keyword,

Richardson  searched on patents mentioning the words "herb# or herbal# or herbal medicine or herbalism or (traditional and (medicine or remedy). He stressed that it was unclear whether a patent containing one of these words actually was  a herbal or traditional medicine patent. Nor would every herbal/traditional medicine patent mention one of these words - they might fail to mention any history of the technology in order to obtain exclusive rights.  In any case, for getting a general trend he  ran the search. There were 4328 patent records mentioning these words in Derwent's World Patents Index (available via the telnet online hosts - STN, Dialog, Orbit or Questel;also available for searching via the Derwent Search Service US703-706-4220). The World Patents Index covers 40 patent- issuing authorities, including the US, EP, PCT, Japan, China, etc. Derwent  translate over 16,000 patents a week into English (from over 30 languages).
A: . Ownership of patents that mention the words "herb# or herbal# or herbal medicine or herbalism or (traditional and (medicine or remedy)"

It seems to be mostly individual inventors (last names followed by first initial) There are not many corporate names in this list of the top 100 patent holders compared with other areas of technology. First twenty in the list are given here in Table one.

Table one 

RANK   # OCC  # PATS  % PATS PATENT ASSIGNEE
------ ------- ------ ------ ---------------
     1      28     28   0.65 TSUMURA & CO
     2      24     24   0.55 WANG Z
     3      22     22   0.51 INT FLAVORS & FRAGRANCES INC
     4      20     20   0.46 LI Y
     5      20     20   0.46 NISSHIN FLOUR MILLING CO
     6      20     20   0.46 TSUMURA JUNTENDO KK
     7      16     16   0.37 UNILEVER NV
     8      16     16   0.37 WANG Y
     9      15     15   0.35 CHEN J
    10      15     15   0.35 UNILEVER PLC
    11      14     14   0.32 WANG J
    12      14     14   0.32 ZHANG Z
    13      13     13   0.30 HASEGAWA CO LTD
    14      13     13   0.30 KANEBO LTD
    15      13     13   0.30 KAO CORP
    16      13     13   0.30 LIU Y
    17      12     12   0.28 BASF AG
    18      12     12   0.28 FIRMENICH SA
    19      12     12   0.28 LION CORP
    20      12     12   0.28 NITTO ELECTRIC IND CO

B. THE AVERAGE INVENTOR/COMPANY APPLIES TO 1 COUNTRY ONLY

Derwent updates each patent record each time a patent is published in a new country - giving reliable patent family information.

in 1987 there were 164 patent records containing the words "herb# or herbal# or herbal medicine or herbalism or (traditional and (medicine or remedy)" and 69.51% of them only applied to one country.  in 1996 there were 522 patents containing either of these words. 83.72% applied in only one country. but notice some of the higher numbers here
compared to 1987 - some of these patents were applied for in 60+ countries. This would seem to indicate the technology is getting more important. It is very expensive to patent in that many countries - the patentee must feel there is long term viability.

C.IN  1996 CHINA PATENTED THE MOST OF THESE PATENTS - 239 PATENTS OR
45.79% OF THE 522. HERE ARE ALL THE COUNTRIES IN THE GROUP FROM DERWENT;S 
DATABASE.

Table two 

RANK    # OCC  # PATS %PATS  PUBLICATION COUNTRY
------ ------- ------ ------ ---------------
     1     240    239  45.79 CN CHINA
     2     132    106  20.31 JP JAPAN
     3      62     62  11.88 RU RUSSIAN FEDERATION
     4      95     60  11.49 EP EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
     5      54     51   9.77 US UNITED STATES
     6      69     50   9.58 AU AUSTRALIA
     7      49     47   9.00 WO WORLD PATENT OFFICE
     8      55     45   8.62 DE GERMANY
     9      28     22   4.21 ES SPAIN
    10      24     22   4.21 CA CANADA
    11      21     17   3.26 HU HUNGARY
    12      16     16   3.07 ZA SOUTH AFRICA
    13      14     10   1.92 FR FRANCE
    14      15      9   1.72 GB ENGLAND
    15      11      8   1.53 CZ CZECH REPUBLIC
    16       8      7   1.34 BR BRAZIL
    17       7      7   1.34 RO ROMANIA
    18       6      6   1.15 PT PORTUGAL
    19       8      5   0.96 NO NORWAY
    20       5      5   0.96 IT ITALY
    21       5      5   0.96 SK SLOVAKIA
    22       7      4   0.77 FI FINLAND
    23       4      4   0.77 TW TAIWAN
    24       6      3   0.57 AT AUSTRIA
    25       3      3   0.57 CH SWITZERLAND
    26       3      3   0.57 IE IRELAND
    27       3      3   0.57 IL ISRAEL
    28       2      2   0.38 BE BELGIUM
    29       2      2   0.38 NZ NEW ZEALAND
    30       2      2   0.38 SU SOVIET UNION
    31       2      1   0.19 CS CZECHOSLOVAKIA
    32       1      1   0.19 DD GERMANY
    33       1      1   0.19 DK DENMARK
    34       1      1   0.19 RD RESEARCH DISCLOSURE

D. IN 1992 THE COUNTRY RANK WAS VERY SIMILAR 

The data from Exim Bank and the trends indicated here seem to suggest that we have to be careful in developing our future strategy.  China,  Japan and Russia are the major countries which seem to show  major intellectual Property protection activity. Given the direction of our herbal exports, it seems to corroborate the trend in patenting. Except that China does not need to import herbs from us and instead relies on its internal supply.
But China can become a world leader in herbal drug patents, why can not India ? One obvious answer is that  we seem to be more concerned about the adverse effect of product patent regime  on our common people than China which incidentally has achieved much higher growth in per capita income in recent years.  It is not just the domestic supply of herbal drugs in which China leads but its share of the world 
trade also is significant. China produces about US$ 10 billion worth of drugs of which  
US$3 billion worth drugs are exported (Exim Bank, 1997). I disagree with the suggestion fo Exim Bank report (1997:33) that given the high costs of developing new drugs, Indian companies can play major role in just ”carrying out clinical trials, colelctig and analysing test data from other centres”.  This is the same story as in software industry. We claim to provide some of the best software programmers in the world but we seem to be satisfied with servicing other’s needs at low level of margins. We do not seem to gather will to introduce our own branded products in global markets. Drug industry can go the same way if our strategy remains what it is at present. Ranbaxy is planning to enter US market under its own brand name next year and that shows its confidence in its ability to deliver.

While the potential of biodiversity based knowledge systems and herbal supply is well recognised, we do not have nay national or industry level strategy  even in this field. Let me illustrate:

Lack of Strategy in Biodiversity Conservation and Prospecting:

a) 	No major company whether ayurvedic or allopathic, national or international seems to have any plan of sustainable extraction of wild herbs from forest or elsewhere.
b) 	Given an extraordinary high price spread from field to firm, the wages paid to local herb collectors are so low that even they do not have nay incentives to conserve diversity
c) 	the conservation of biodiversity I have repeatedly argued can not be ensured by keeping people poor. After most poor people do inhabit the regions which otherwise are rich in biodiversity of different kinds ( Gupta, 1990-1996).
d) 	there is no national mission to achieve strategic leadership in either certain drug areas in which we have raw material advantage or in which we have domestic unmet demand ( and where our imports are maximum) or in areas in which we have research advantages. 
e) 	despite public pronouncements , partnership between public, private and NGOs and communities of herbalists have not come about to give us a strategic advantage in conceptualising the heuristics of research. After all, the cost reduction as well as higher hit rate can only be achieved by  using different heuristics and not just by doing the more of the same.  
f) 	The effort in the draft national Legislation on biodiversity  conservation  to regulate the access by only international biodiversity prospectors leaving domestic users to have a free run over resources is neither prudent nor sustainable.  There is a need for domestic as well as international companies to join efforts to achieve consensus on minimal responsibility the prospectors will follow towards nature as well a conserving communities. There should be some agreement on benefit sharing protocol between local herbalists and their communities and  external prospectors. 
g) 	Data bases like NAPRALERT having 130,000 references on more than 40,000 species with all the information on local names, purposes for which screened, compounds present, activities present etc.,  are not widely accessible to users with in India. Though this data base is accessible electronically through email to users in third world without any cost , there are large number of companies, research institutions, pharmacy colleagues and other leading labs which do not ether have access or do not use for whatever reasons. National Data bases developed by CSIR are also not widely accessible to common researchers. Obviously this means lot of low quality research some of which is also highly repetitive.
h) 	Despite repeated pleas to national scientific leaders for developing  high throughput screening robotics systems,  we still do not have any time bound program to do so. The result is that it takes months to screen just a few plants of  scores of  micro-organisms. We took up a study on microbial diversity map of Gujarat under the auspices of SRISTI ( a NGO, Http://csf.coloardo.edu/sristi)  in collaboration with IISc, MS University, GAU and many other institutions. Out of 760 samples, we could hardly analyse about 60 samples for basic microbial diversity in a year. The taxonomic identification of new cultures was even more difficult. 
i) 	Taxonomy is a dying discipline and there is no corporate investment in chairs on taxonomy. The tragedy is that national apex institutions such as Botanical Survey of India as well as Zoological Survey of India do not have experts in many fields of plant and animal kingdom. There is no strategy to build capacity and retain the skills that we have.
j) 	One of the state Governments has recently shown interest in setting up in collaboration with SRISTI ( Society for Research and initiatives for Research in Sustainable technologies and Institutions) a Centre of Excellence in Indigenous Veterinary Medicine. Honey bee network has one of the largest data bases on local knowledge and innovations in the field of herbal use for various purpose.  More than 6000 innovations with the name and addresses of the innovators from over 2300 villages are already  recorded. The purpose is to augment local repertoire of such knowledge. One can not conserve such a rich knowledge systems only by recording it in books. One has to conserve it in situ .  
k) 	However, unless we have an innovation patent system akin to petty patent system as in vogue in many countries but particularly in Australia, we will not be able to provide incentives to local communities as well as herbalists to disclose their knowledge unhesitatingly. After no herbal company has invested any thing in their well being. So far.  SRISTI  and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad made a proposal on INSTAR ( International Network on Sustainable Technologies Applications and Registration)  which aims to provide limited period proetction to local communities as well as herbalists. The advanatge of national and global data base of local knowledge systems and herbal; drugs will be that small Entrepreneurs form one part of the world may source innovation from another part and seek investment funds from third place and set up an enterprise in one of the places. Golden Triangle of Innovations, Enterprise, and Investment  has been sought to be operationalize through a venture promotion funds  called as GIAN  ( Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) set up in collaboration with Gujarat Government with an initial proposed corpus of Rs 10 million  of which about fifty per cent has already been mobilised. Idea is to upscale small innovations and help in building bridges between local herbalists and corporations interested in developing products such as drugs and act as an honest brokers.
l) 	Even the large firms have considerable patent illiteracy in India and there is a need for  an urgent program at building not only awareness but also capacity to deal with complex IPR related issues.

Part Two: Inter-Organisational Strategy for R & D and patent advantages 

There are several implications that follow from the analysis of the lack of strategy  towards deriving competitive advantage in drug industry. I summarise the key arguments here:

a) 	No one department or discipline can really research all the dimensions of drug discovery and formulation. And yet there is no way one can develop a globally competitive product or nationally advantageous product without developing  Knowledge Networks ( KNs).  
b) 	KNs should link not only experts in various departments but also in the villages and slums  who may be reached only through vernacular media. It is the blend between excellence in informal and formal sector that real breakthrough will come. 
c) 	\We have to remember that we can win this struggle by doing more of the same or what every body much better endowed than us do.
d) 	We should remember that out of about 1500 plants recorded in various texts, hardly 600 are used extensively. There are supposed to be 43000 species in India and if we include about 7000 plants of which folkloric uses have been recorded by Ethnobotanical surveys( without ever sharing any knowledge or returns back with the providers of knowledge) , there  still remains a great deal of knowledge still to be documented, tried and tested.  Will we just let this opportunity slip by our finger as in  past?
e) 	The networks  will evolve only when there is a  room for imagination, long term perspective, mutual faith and willingness to fail in good faith i.e. to take risks and not feel too bad on failure. It is not impossible to work together without any formal agreements.  SRISTI has worked with private as well as public sector labs and in many cases has been frustrated while in other cases, has received very significant results.   At least it is possible to have collaborations when one knows that cause is clear, no attempt is made to take credit for each other’s work , resources  are shared etc.
f) 	The networks that will lead to creation of Knowledge Organisation and Knowledge Network swill require dynamism and real time connectivity across cultural, disciplinary and sectoral spaces. This is a challenge to IPC to help forge such networks that can endure day to day to pressures of survival andhelp the key actor see  far into future.

Part Three: Where do we go from here?

IPRs are a means of helping society make  a transition towards a meritocratic systems. The possibility of Knowledge Rich economically poor communities, nations and individuals making difference is clear.  My faith stems not only from what I have seen but also from what I see as possible. There are hardly any patents on neem for instance which do not quote an Indian work and yet how many commercializable patents did we file?  There are examples where individual researchers have generated tremendous welath through small scale research.  

On one hand we have attempts to extend the life of existing patents as long as possible so that profits of large corporations continue. If a bill pending before US congress gets passed in next few months, pharmaceutical companies may be able to extend brand name products by as much as ten years by paying 3 per cent royalty to government. On the other  hand we have recent decision of Australian government to introduce a modified petty patent system called as Innovation Patent System with 8 year protection and limited inquiry of novelty, only five claims per application and low costs. The idea is that small and medium enterprises might benefit most from such a system fo quick registration of innovations at low cost. It will help reduce cost of gaining and thus commercialising the intellectual property.  

We have to devise our strategies keeping our strength in view. Our domestic industry can be wiped out of we do not generate opportunities for new ways of collaboration among small and big, informal and formal and national and international.  We should not just think of a few options which seem popular at present ie. Joint ventures with large corporations. That may be a way of gobbling up national partners. But we should think of making our small scale sector more inventive, make public R and D system more closely aligned with the industry so that user perspective can be brought into every day decision making system. At the same time, we need to augment the capabilities of  individual  herbalists in villages who despite remaining poor have conserved this knowledge so that they become partners n the new wealth creation process. 

Once the knowledge is lost, diversity will be like a library without a catalogue. Do we want to create such a situation. If not, how will  a national campaign be generated to make IPRs and INSTAR as central instruments of creating wealth. I have suggested some ways of doing that. But there must be many more ways and I hope that we will search such ways rather than argue that intellectual property must remain an enigma or a football field for rhetorical players who have probably never met creative and innovative people in their life. Otherwise how does one explain their lack of confidence in native genius?

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Technologies, Institutions and Incentives for Conservation of Biodiversity in Non-OECD 
Countries:  Assessing Needs for Technical Cooperation, presented at OECD Conference on 
Biodiversity Conservation Incentive Measures in Cairns, Australia, March 25-29, 1996, 
published in the proceedings, "Investing In Biological Diversity:The Cairns Conference", 
Paris: OECD,1997

Poverty abounds in biodiversity-rich areas. Down To Earth, September 15,1992, pp33-36.

Honey Bee:  An Accountable Global Network of Grassroots Innovators and Experimenters, 
published in Development, 1993:3, pg.65, Journal of SID

Must Conservators Remain Poor, "Seminar" No.438, February, 1996, pp.48-53.

Are Efficiency, Equity and Scale Independent?, "Ecological Economics" 10 (1994) pp.89-
91

Intellectual Property Rights and Environment:  Patents and People's Knowledge Systems, 
"Sustainable Development and Accounting", CSE Publication, New Delhi, forthcoming

The Honey Bee Network Strengthens: Knowledge for Crops, Creativity and Compensation, 
Diversity, Vol.12, No.3, 1996, pg.76-78. 

(With Kirit K Patel) Turning Things Upside Down:  Creativity and Innovations at Grassroots, 
International Conference, January 1997, published in Forests, Trees and People, Newslet
ter No.31, September 1996.
 
(With Vijaya Sherry Chand) A River Without Tributaries: Liberating the Mind Through 
Harnessing Grassroots Creativity, published in The Indian Journal of Public Administration 
(Quarterly Journal of The Indian Institute of Public Administration), July-Sept 1996, 
Vol.XLII, No.3, pg.288-301.