Patenting Yoga Postures

The practice of filing patents is encouraged in the West. Particularly, US companies give incentives to their employees if they file patents. Its part of the culture. In US, there is a whole system in place to facilitate the process. There is also a strong opposition to patenting knowledge and groups like FSF believe that knowledge should be freely available for everyone's benefit. For the most part, I side with them. However, I agree that the world is converging and geographic and cultural boundaries are fading. Patents will have a strong hold in our lives.

But, man, I could use some money and my company pays handsomely for a good patent. I love both, my area of work and my company. With this combination, it is a matter of time before I THINK I file a patent.

I am digressing. Getting back to the point.

We sometimes come across things that we take for granted. Or that we never think of patenting them. We do hear stories of some silly and crazy patents. However, a friend forwarded me an article that blew my mind away.

Filing patents for Yoga Postures. Dude! What is going on! So, now I have to pay royalty to twist my body?

Here is a quote from the article

"The attempt by US teachers to patent traditional poses has caused disbelief and anger in India, where it has been practiced for around 6,000 years."

Also, did you know that there are already 130 yoga-related patents, 150 copyrights and 2,300 trademarks?

In response, a team of yoga gurus from nine schools and 200 scientists from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research [CSIR] have started Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to identify and record all the yoga postures from ancient texts.

OK, now we got that cleared, did you know that, according to above article, Yoga is a $225 billion industry. Let me invent and patent a new posture :)