Yoga piracy is the appropriation of postures and techniques that are found in ancient and traditional yoga treatises belonging to Hinduism and India. India yogis have been concerned by such people as fitness instructors in the West who claim patents and copyrights on asanas (yoga poses) and pranayama techniques and sequences; and ayurvedic medicine.

Typically, western practitioners and teachers have taken over the traditional knowledge, although the case of Bikram Yoga is also relevant.

The Government of India has initiated the documentaion of 1,500 yoga asana or postures - from Patanjali (ancient Hindu texts) to the present times - and store them in a Digital Traditional Knowledge Library to be made available to patent offices globally.

The database would have 30 million pages and a third of it has already been compiled under the Commerce Ministry.

15 of the most prominent yoga schools in India are involved including the Iyengar Institute and Kaivalyadham, run by Nitin Unkule.

While knowledge about yoga has been in public domain in India in various vernacular languages, the same was not available to patent examiners abroad, which is why outsiders have been granted patents on something

New Delhi’s action assumes significance as there is huge money involved in yoga, which according to some estimates, is a $3 billion industry in the US alone.

See also

• Bikram Yoga
• Hinduism
• India
• Intellectual property
• Traditional knowledge
• Yoga