I don't know if that really applies here. That patent was for a process that had been around prior to the application. I think we are talking about a product. Is it the same?
But the EPO agreed that the process for which the patent had been granted had actually been in use in India for many years.
Under normal circumstances, a patent application should always be rejected if there is prior existing knowledge about the product.
But in the United States, "prior existing knowledge" is only recognised if it is published in a journal - not if it has been passed down through generations of oral and folk traditions.
EU and US are very different. EU is a bunch of socialist and thus they look at the world in that view. The patent would still be vaild here in the US and this in now way applies to aquaculture. Do we give the Chinese a patent to aquaculture because they have been doing long before anyone else? No of course not. Again this whole idea of biopiracy when it comes to a general animals is a non starter.
