India Fighting U.S. Copyright of Ancient Yoga Forms

This was the defiant stance taken by Gupta, head of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, an Indian government agency that has so far scanned, catalogued and preserved ancient texts and documents of more than 900 yoga postures.

The statement was made in light of several U.S. companies wanting to copyright and patent several ancient yoga forms.

According to the blogsite of University of Delhi Law professor, Topi Basar, “The US Patent and Trademark office has reportedly issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 trademarks on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks. Any one teaching these patented asanas might have to pay a royalty to the American patent holder.”

The controversy came to a head in 2004, when Bikram Choudhary, a popular Hollywood yoga fitness guru, sought to copyright and patent 26 postures in his style of “Bikram Yoga” or “Hot Yoga,” which is practiced in a room that has been preheated to a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit and has a humidity of 50 percent. Pundits refer to this as “Steam Room Yoga.” The entire course involves the training of 26 postures and two breathing exercises.

A federal suit filed against Bikram alleged that he collected “royalties” from smaller studios offering “Hot Yoga” classes.

Choudhary’s patents outraged yoga practitioners worldwide, particularly India, which sees this as a misuse and misappropriation of its traditional knowledge.

It is estimated that yoga is a $6 billion a year business in the United States with 30 million practitioners.

Gupta’s digital library plans to be a record of all yoga forms that have been commonly used through centuries. The first of its kind in the world, the library hopes no yoga patent application will succeed for to qualify it has to have, among other things, the element of “novelty,” meaning, being a new product or process that has not been widely known and used by the public.