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Patented Seeds
rhh writes: "Seeds and plants grown from seeds are now patentable. Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that seeds and seed grown plants can be covered by patents. This is a major victory for companies such as DuPont, Monsanto and others that develop new crop varieties. In J.E.M. AG supply, Inc., DBA Farm Advantage, Inc., et al. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. farmers had sued saying that patents drove the price of seed up. A PDF of the Court's opinion can be found here."
The key to a patent is that you are the first to patent it -- not the first to discover it. Large companies like Monsanto have been trying to patent native, unaltered, unresearched varieties of local seeds in an attempt to create a revenue stream.
In India, big American companies are claiming patents on local varieties of basmati rice so that local farmers will have to pay money for seeds they grew themselves, from strains that have existed for millenia.
Patents aren't about new discoveries. They are about money. The first to "invent" something completely new deserves a patent. However, being the first to patent something that nature created does not deserve a patent.
It ALSO prevents screaming protesters from claiming that the plant in question will escape from the farms and overrun all the native plants, which is supposedly the INTENDED purpose of the genes.
Not to say that I don't think the executives at the companies in question love the 'rebuy the seeds every year' side effect...
Then again, I don't recall ever hearing of seed companies sending armed thugs around to farmers hinting that they'd better not buy 'reproducible' seeds, either...
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True, this case allows utility patents on plants, a practice that has been going on for over a decade. This case just specifies that the practice is OK.
As far as the dangers of not being able to replant, nothing is preventing the farmers from replanting unmodified seeds. Farmers can still do business exactly as they did before, just not with GM patented seeds for which they sign an agreement that they won't replant. Not to be cynical, but if they don't want to agree to this, they shouldn't buy the seeds. And if the seeds are so great that they must buy them, then such an agreement doesn't sound so bad--since the farmers are getting such great seeds. That, and the fact that if we want such seeds, we absolutely must allow companies who develop them to reap profit. They can't do this if farmers replant.
As far as this being CONTRARY to the PVPA, the court specifically ruled that this is NOT CONTRARY to the PVPA. The PVPA has lower thresholds for protection, and offers less protection. Patent law has stricter standards, and offers better protection. Nothing in the patent laws nor the PVPA nor the PPA says you can't patent plants. (Or so sayeth the Platonic Nine--or Eight, since O'Conner didn't participate.)
You also say the court overturned congressional intent. They address that too. Congress has known about patenting of plants for over a decade, they have made vast changes to parts of the patent code during that time. But they have never suggested that you should not be able to plant patents, and they have had ample chance. According to the court in their opinion.
As far as patenting gene sequences, I have envisioned a world in the future where you take out a license on a genetic trait--blue eyes, for example. You take an inhaler or injection that modifies your genes, modifies them by a patented process. You sign a license when you do this that says every year you will pay $100 to keep your blue eyes. If you don't, you infringe.
Now, the person with natural blue eyes, he would obviously not infringe. He did not use the innovative patented process for changing eye color genes. And since his eye color OCCURS NATURALLY, no one can patent it. No one. Except GOd, because he invented it.