V P Sharma

"Part of the blame for foreign companies patenting neem products has to be taken by our own country. . People have been using neem for centuries here; but we (the scientists) have not been protecting the rights of our people over neem.

It is not that our scientists never worked on it. But generally, our whole approach has been different. So far, the stress of our scientists has been whollyon research; commercial aspects have stood ignored or discouraged.

Instead of wasting time, we should patent immediately whatever knowledge is available to us. The problem is that there is no infrastructure to help government research institutions and scientists obtain patents for their works. There should be patent advisory panels attached to research institutions.