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Can I See Your License for those Plants, Sir?
McGruff writes: "A Canadian court has ruled that a farmer growing genetically modified canola without a license violated Monsanto's patent and owes damages. Percy Schmeiser claims that the seeds blew onto his farm from passing seed trucks and from neighboring farms. The court held that regardless of whether he planted them deliberately or if he merely found them growing on his farm, it was his responsibility to destroy the seeds and seedlings or pay royalties. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is carrying the article and the Federal Court of Canada has the full
text of the ruling in PDF form."
Monsanto is to Microsoft what the Borg are to Dr. Evil (Austin Powers). Bill's pathetic little attempts to take over the world with some crummy software has got nothing on the company that owns the genetic rights at least one ingredient in something like 80% of all the food we eat. If that doesn't scare you, I bet you're running an unpatched version of Bind (or IE 5 ;-)
*sing* I'm a karma whore and I'm okay....
I work all night and I post all day
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
God is suing, well, everybody, for violating his patent on cellular mitosis. Many people are using the 'my cells do it on thier own, I don't even know what that word means' defence, but the judge involved does not buy that. He says 'As soon as you realized that you weren't dead, you should have started paying the royalties, scumass.'
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
So next time you could have patent owning companies purposely mixing some of their seeds with normal seeds and then claiming the present crops be destroyed or ask for royalties.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
This is truly fantastic, and it doesn't end with poor farmers.
For instance, say you're eating a genetically modified apple. The seeds drop into your flowerpot and starts growing, and voilà - you have to pay!
Would something like the echelon movement do here? What I mean is that people include words that trigger echelon in sigs and what not. In the same spirit, people could just get their hands on lots and lots of genetically modified and patented seeds, and plant them everywhere all over the earth - in public places, parks, governmental areas.
Not that that would be good for our poor planet, since we have no idea what can come of this genetic engineering with nature...
:wq!
If his neighbor buys the seed, and he doesn't, but a bee pollenates between the two plants (I assume this happens, but I don't know for sure), and his seeds start to contain the Monsanto 'patented genes', then what? The decision Monsanto won says that he STILL owes them royalties.
I think this is the ultimate form of 'viral' marketing -- by selling to one farmer, and shutting up for a long time, they could (potentially) get all farmers in Canada (and, potentially, the U.S.) to owe them money.
*sniff* Hmmm... *sniff* *sniff* something smells rotten. *sniiiiiiiiff* I think it's coming from the patent offices around the world...
It begs the question:
If the genetics companies are so concerned about people replanting this seed (accidentally, as it would seem in this case, or deliberately), then why is it not their responsibility to sell only plants that cannot produce seeds? It would seem to be gross negligence on their part, allowing their plants to seed other farmers properties, and contaminate the seed collected there.
Really, this guy should win his countersuit against Monsanto for contaminating his crops. He should be awarded enormous damages. Unless there is specific evidence that he went out of his way to steal and cultivate this seed, this decision should not go any other way.
Offtopic, I know, but I saw your sig, and ... well ... not sure if there's an official continuation of that song, but, well, the creative juices are flowing this morning and here's my version
I'm a Karma Whore and I'm ok,
I work all night and I post all day.
I troll slashdot
And flame JonKatz,
I like to get first post
I have a dozen accounts
But use HiNote the most
I'm a Karma Whore and I'm ok,
I work all night and I post all day.
I post AC,
Reply to sigs
I complain and I whine
I like to spell micro$oft
With a dollar sign
I'm a Karma Whore and I'm ok,
I work all night and I post all day.
I flame a lot
I use 1337 5p34k
Then people envy me
I wish I was hacker
Not just a skript kiddie
I'm a Karma Whore and I'm ok,
I work all night and I post all day.
It is certainly withing the police power of the state to place an obligation not to use the seeds upon the farmer, even if they blow there. *However*, if these seeds are waste of such a type, which imposes an obligation to act upon the farmer, then the entry of the seed onto his property was a tresspass, for which he is entitled to damages--includeing the cost of removing them, lost profits from not being able to use the contaminated portion of his land, etc.
hawk, esq.
Wrong. Monsanto produces "Roundup ready" plants.
These do _not_ produce any toxins themselves. Instead, they were modified to be resistant to Roundup, a glycophosphate based herbicide.
These are to control weeds, not insects. I fully agree that these are a very worrying idea, but spreading untruths is not helpful. In any field. The truth is scary enough.
Plants can't spread DNA to others. The worry about spreading genes is primarlily in corss polination, where pollen from modifed corn gets blown around, and lands on normal corn.
There is a theoretical risk of a virus picking up the modified genes and spreading them to other species, true - but cross pollination is a much bigger issue.
--
The Canadian farmers started to accuse Monsanto of cross pollinating a while ago. Farmers near fields with "those gall darn ge'tic seeds" found that Monsanto seed ended up in their crop. Fears of an uncontrollable cross pollinated world of genetically altered food started to be thrown about. What happened next?
Monsanto spied on farmers, then "burned" farmers fields in order to destroy evidence. When caught, Monsanto said they were "testing" fields. Hmm, and flew night missions in Cessnas to carry out these "normal" activities. Yea... sure.
And now they win a court case against a farmer who has complained about Monsanto seed in his crop before. I don't care if the whole field is full of Genetic seed, it's still Monsantos responsibility.
Monsanto wants to own the worlds food before the farmer does. It's insidious!
They have killed before, they will kill again.
______
jeff13