Court Annuls Canopy-Tour Patent
By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff
kstanley@ticotimes.net

A seven-year battle over the rights to canopy tours, a popular tourist activity in which participants whiz through rain forest treetops on cables, appeared to move toward a conclusion yesterday as reports circulated that the Administrative Contention Court has annulled Canadian inventor Darren Hreniuk’s controversial 20-year patent of the system he says he invented.

Aney Zeledón, a legal representative for The Original Canopy Tour, Hreniuk’s company, told The Tico Times yesterday that she had received no notification of the court’s decision. However, the daily La Nación reported yesterday it had obtained a copy of the ruling, dated Dec. 17, 2004, that annuls the 1998 patent for the “system of elevated forest transport with propulsion by gravity using a harness and pulley in a simple horizontal line,” the canopy tour’s technical description.

Appeals to the Registry of Industrial Property by other canopy tour owners, whose conflict with Hreniuk reached the Supreme Court twice since the patent was granted, prompted the ruling, according to La Nación.

Zeledón said she would take immediate action if she learns the patent has indeed been annulled.

“I haven’t received any information...but if it were true that they annulled the patent, we would immediately take action with the Administrative Contention Court,” she said.

A statement to the press by two other legal advisors to the company, Rafael González and Enrique Rojas, confirmed that no one at the company had been notified of the ruling. Annulment of the patent would violate multiple laws, including Article 47 of the Constitution, which protects the intellectual creations of inventors, the statement said.

Hreniuk began building Costa Rica’s first commercial canopy tour in 1994 in the mountaintop community of Monteverde, northwest of San José. He applied to patent the system in 1997, and the Intellectual Property Rights Office granted a 20-year patent in 1998.

Since that time, many other canopy tour operators set up shop, causing Hreniuk to complain to the National Registry that his competitors were violating his inventor’s rights. In April 2003, the Registry’s then-director, Liliana Alfaro, ordered that all other unlicensed canopy-tour operators close and surrender their equipment (TT, May 2, 2003).

When operators resisted the order and reopened, justices of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) first suspended the Registry’s order so that they could examine the case, then voted to reinstate the order and uphold the patent.

Following that decision, Hreniuk and armed police officers visited canopy tours in the central Pacific region, cutting down platforms and cables (TT, Dec. 5, 2003).

The owners of Hotel Villa Lapas in Playa Jacó, on the central Pacific coast, filed a lawsuit after Hreniuk and company destroyed its canopy tour, prompting a ruling against Alfaro by the Sala IV. The ruling, announced Nov. 29, stated the closure and destruction of other canopy tours violated due process, and ordered Alfaro to pay damages (TT, Dec. 3).

Hreniuk’s opponents argue an exclusive canopy tour patent is ridiculous, since tree-to-tree ziplines date back to the 19th century and were introduced as a means for rain-forest study in Costa Rica in the 1970s by U.S. biologist Donald Perry (TT, May 30, 2003). Tourism Minister Rodrigo Castro has said granting a patent for canopy tours is like “giving a patent for the wheel” (TT, Dec. 5, 2003).

However, Hreniuk and his representatives argue the idea of the canopy tour as a commercial venture is his alone and has brought a significant influx of revenue to Costa Rica. The activity has produced $180 million to date, according to yesterday’s statement by Original Canopy Tour representatives. An estimated 25% of tourists take a canopy tour during their stay in Costa Rica (TT, Dec. 5, 2003).