The debate over Plumpy'Nut and whether it should have been patented in the first place continues.
Now US food company Tabatchncik Fine Foods is talking about creating its own peanut-based therapeutic food to feed severely malnourished youngsters, according to IRIN. And Tabatchnick is considering making its product open-source so anyone can copy their recipe.
From the IRIN piece, as aggregated by Reuters:
"Ben Tabatchnick, head of the family business, said his product was still in the development phase, but the patent would be "open-source", which would allow other producers to replicate his recipe.
His company "was trying to take the fear out of other producers from producing RUTF and keeping up with demand; no one producer can supply (even with licensed franchises) the world demand for RUTF and RUSF [ready-to-use supplementary foods]", he commented. "By allowing others free access (with proper oversight by UNICEF and MSF), this can and will be accomplished." "
For a quick introduction to the patent, see "What Plumpy'Nut Taught Me"
To see all my past posts and links on Plumpy'Nut, click here:
I'm not sure what the impact would be of patenting the Plumpy'Nut in the first place. I mean what is the point of getting a patent if you allow for open source to replicate the recipe. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a patent?
ReplyDeleteElliot
Cabbage Soup Diet
Dear Mrs Gorman,
ReplyDeleteI've been following with great interest your various posts about Plumpy'nut® and RUTF. The last one prompts me to send a comment, since the IRIN article you refer to is quite misleading. Below, you'll find an excerpt of Nutriset comments, and a link to download our complete letter. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you want more info.
Sincerely,
Rémi Vallet
Communications Manager / Nutriset
rvallet[at]nutriset[dot]fr
****
Dear partners,
Following the recent publication of an article on IRIN’s website (Making peanut butter gets stickier, http://www.irinnews.org/), Nutriset has decided to send a few comments as some of the statements made in the article are rather misleading, biased, and do not properly reflect the reality of the ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) situation today.
In particular, Nutriset would like to highlight three main points:
1) The issue of access to RUTF has nothing to do with a lack of production capacity resulting from existing patents; rather, it is the result of insufficient funding to implement appropriate nutrition interventions that employ products such as Plumpy’nut®, the original RUTF.
2) Nutriset has always been committed to ensuring nutritional solutions are made available to vulnerable groups, and describing the company as a “hurdle” is simply not accurate.
3) The approach of Nutriset in regards to the management of its Intellectual Property (IP) rights is to use the patents as a protective tool to foster the expansion of sustainable production of high-quality RUTF and Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements (LNS, a preventive RUF) in developing countries.
To read the entirety of Nutriset’s comments, please click on the link below to download our letter (PDF):
http://www.nutriset.fr/images/stories/PDF/2009-11-nutrisetcomments.pdf