Today's WTF moment

[GeorgeGist]

13. In September 1997 Texas, USA company RiceTec

was granted U.S. Patent No. 5,663,484 on "basmati rice lines and grains." The patent secures lines of basmati and basmati-like rice and ways of analyzing that rice. RiceTec, owned by Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein, faced international outrage over allegations of biopiracy. It had also caused a brief diplomatic crisis between India and United States with India threatening to take the matter to WTO as a violation of TRIPS which could have resulted in a major embarrassment for the United States.[8] Both voluntarily and due to review decisions by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, RiceTec lost or withdrew most of the claims of the patent, including, most importantly, the right to call their rice lines "basmati."[9] A more limited varietal patent was granted to RiceTec in 2001 on claims dealing with three strains of the rice developed by the company.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmati