In many cases, Grace met with a rebuff. M N Sukhatme, Director of Herringer Bright Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. which manufactures the neem based insecticide Indiara, was put under pressure by Grace to sell the technology for a storage stable neem extract, which does not require heating or any chemical change. Initially the plant will process 20 tons of seed a day. They are also setting up a network of neem seed suppliers, to ensure a constant supply of the seeds at a reliable price.
Grace is likely to be followed by other patent-holding companies.
In 1992, the US National Research Council published a report designed to ' open up the Western world's corporate eyes to seemingly endless variety of products the tree might offer'. This appeal is blatantly commercial. Grace's aggressive interest in India neem production has provoked a chorus of objections from Indian scientists, farmers and political activists, who assert that multinational companies have no right to expropriate the fruit of centuries of indigenous experimentation and several decades of Indian scientific research. This has stimulated a bitter transcontinental debate about the ethics of intellectual property and patent rights. There is no patent on it, perhaps because everyone recognises it as a product of nature.