By IPS Correspondents
BANGKOK, May 16 1998 (IPS)

Thailand’s rights to its famed jasmine rice, as well as its rice exports, are under threat by a U.S. firm’s use of the name “jasmati” as a brand for a product that it calls a copy of the Thai variety, farmers and activists say.

As a result, they have linked arms to protect the interests of Thais who grow jasmine and see the U.S. trademark as an attempt to confuse consumers and undercut their intellectual property rights.

This week, Thai lawyers and genetic conservation groups asked the commerce ministry to file a complaint with the U.S. about the moves of the Texas-based RiceTec Inc.

In September 1997, RiceTec won trademark over a brand of rice called “Jasmati”, described as a copy of the aromatic Thai jasmine rice. The product’s package says it is the “Texas-grown copy of jasmine rice from Thailand”.

Witoon Lianchamroon, coordinator of the Thai Network on Community Rights and Biodiversity (BIOTHAI), says jasmine rice is the next target in line after another of Asia’s aromatic rices — basmati rice from India and Pakistan — that RiceTec is encroaching on.

“RiceTec is attacking basmati. Now it will be very easy to attack jasmine,” Witoon said. “The company can patent it like what they did to basmati. If they find the gene for jasmine aroma, they can claim a monopoly on it just for identifying it.”

At about the same time RiceTec registered its trademark of “jasmati” brand, it also won a U.S. patent for the breeding of basmati rice, which has been developed by generations of Punjabi farm families. The patent covers basmati grown anywhere in the western hemisphere, and any breeding of Pakistani or Indian basmati strains with the firm’s other proprietary seeds.

But while RiceTec has obtained a patent for breeding basmati, it does not have similar rights over jasmine rice — at least not yet. So far, its trademark covers the “jasmati” brand but not a patent on the germplasm of jasmine rice.

“To our knowledge, RiceTec and other U.S.companies marketing ‘their own versions’ of our Jasmine rice have not patented the germplasm, but are exercising their own claims to the name. This in itself is an offense. But they have also distorted the name to our direct disadvantage,” a BIOTHAI statement said.

BIOTHAI, a non-government organisation based in Bangkok, asserts that RiceTec’s “jasmati” brand has nothing to do with Thailand’s jasmine rice.

It said that RiceTec’s “jasmati” is derived from a variety called Della, developed in the U.S. Della is a selection from Bertone rice, which is from the Piedmont area of Italy.

Activists believe the use of “jasmati” brand is aimed at misleading consumers into thinking they are getting Thai jasmine rice.

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