From "White Paper for a Honey Bee Genome Project":

>[the] HBGP is necessary for efficient genomic bio-prospecting


What is Bio-Prospecting?

The hunt for new genes to exploit for profit is regarded as a vast
new frontier in science and industry. "Bioprospectors" are mining the
rich genetic resources of the Third World for pharmaceutical
compounds and other products, often using indigenous knowledge as
their guide. As a result, indigenous communities could end up paying
royalties for products based on plants and knowledge that they have
been using for centuries.

The neem tree, a native of the Indian subcontinent, has a myriad of
applications in traditional Indian Ayurvedic and Tibetan medicine,
agriculture, and household use, as well as being symbolic as
"Gandhi's favorite tree." Its usefulness is known throughout India.
The Latin name, Azadirachta indica, is derived from the Persian for
"free tree," as even the poorest families have access to its
beneficial properties.

However, it is possible that Indian citizens will soon be required to
pay royalties on the products produced from the neem, since a patent
has been granted to the U.S. company W.R. Grace on a compound in the
tree (azadirachtin) for the production of a biopesticide. In 1993,
over five hundred thousand South Indian farmers rallied to protest
foreign patents on plants such as the neem, and launched a
nation-wide resistance movement. Under free trade agreements such as
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), countries of the
developing world will feel strong pressures to implement U.S.-style
patent systems. Multi-national corporations can make large profits on
their "discoveries," while depriving the communities which have
fostered this knowledge for centuries of the choice of how they would
like to use their own knowledge and native species.

No individual, institution or corporation should be able to claim
ownership over species or varieties of living organisms. Nor should
they be able to hold patents on organs, cells, genes or proteins,
whether naturally occurring, genetically altered or otherwise
modified.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/crg.html