Colgate Accused of Stealing Thousand-Year-Old Toothpaste

Colgate, the world’s largest producer of toothpaste, patented a toothcleaning powder in the hope that it would take the multibillion-dollar Indian oral hygiene market by storm.

However, Indian activists claim that the patent is bogus because the ingredients -- including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint -- have been used for the same purpose for hundreds, “if not thousands,” of years on the subcontinent.

The dispute is likely to become a test case for who owns India’s folk medicines -- a repository potentially worth billions.

The American household goods giant was granted the patent in the U.S. in June for what it claimed was a groundbreaking “red herbal dentifrice.” The patent, the Indian activists allege, is the latest act of “biopiracy” -- whereby Western corporations plunder techniques, plants or genes used in the emerging world for centuries, for commercial profit.