Locust posture

Is nothing sacred? Yoga positions are being patented as intellectual property. How weird is that? Indian gurus are angry, and who can blame them?

“Yoga piracy is becoming very common and we are moving to do something about it,” says Vinod Gupta, the head of a recently established Indian government taskforce on traditional knowledge and intellectual property theft.
“We know of at least 150 asanas [yoga positions] that have been pirated in the US, the UK, Germany and Japan. These were developed in India long ago and no one can claim them as their own.”

2 Comments

  1. I’m curious to how this would enforced though. Would a yoga-patent holder have to watch instructors closely to verify that ‘patented’ positions weren’t being used? Or is this just about selling instructional DVDs?
    Very odd.

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