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."

Comments

Great, now we can't eat either

[gi-tux]

This is really bad! What if I am a farmer planting my corn seed that has been handed down through my family, and some pesky little honey bee brings the pollen from my neighbors field to my field (assuming my neighbor is stupid enough to grow their patented trash). I am screwed, because I can't sell or use my corn anymore, it has been polluted by their patented garbage, but they have the right to call up their school of bottom feeding, scum sucking lawyers and sue me. My pure corn was polluted and they will win the case bacause they own a patent and lawyers. Sounds like another case of let's make sure that the lawyers stay employed to me. But what can we expect when we have lawyers making the laws, lawyers judging the laws, and laywers enforcing the laws.

Re:Great, now we can't eat either

[innocent_white_lamb]

I am screwed, because I can't sell or use my corn anymore, it has been polluted by their patented garbage, but they have the right to call up their school of bottom feeding, scum sucking lawyers and sue me.

It's being done right now, as we speak.

http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

Read it and weep, as it were.

How far will this go?

[eugene ts wong]

It should be interesting to see how things will turn out for society as a whole.

Imagine having a GPL-like ownership on a corn seed. If you were a truely benevolent organization, you could share your ideas with starving villages over seas.

I guess that's no different than now, but in the future there may be more information available to encourage people to try out new breeding. It's similar to creating an OS. Right now there is more information available to more people, therefore it isn't as difficult as it once may have been to role out a new OS.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that from an economic stand point, these patents will encourage companies to make better breeds of food. With more information, more people will begin to breed or genetically engineer their own seed. After that their ideas could be patented in a GPL-like way so that corporations couldn't control how the seed will be used.

On the other hand, it's not as if the world is starving because of greedy corporations. Usually this comes about because of bad politics and bad economics.

It is noteworthy to point out that having one's own patent for a seed, wouldn't really help much if you have trouble getting into these countries--whether it would be because of politics or health issues [such as malaria or whatever diseases are passed by mosquitos].

To sum things up, I'm generally in favour of patents for seeds and such things.

Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong

Re:How far will this go?

[BrodyVess]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that from an economic stand point, these patents will encourage companies to make better breeds of food. With more information, more people will begin to breed or genetically engineer their own seed. After that their ideas could be patented in a GPL-like way so that corporations couldn't control how the seed will be used. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the decision rules out. Under previous law, this was the case. GM plants had to be submitted to seed banks so researchers could examine, improve, modify, and reuse the kinds of developments that had been made. If they were different enough from the parent, they could even get protection for their plants, provided they submitted them to seed banks as well. What this ruling does however is make seeds subject to utility patents. These patents are exclusive, require no disclosure, and are very restrictive. Therefore, you dont get to see others work. You dont get enhanced knowledge. You dont get a starting point for more research. you get companies like Monsanto, Dow, and Pioneer-hibred forcing farmers to buy new seed. Every year. Forever. Not sharing with researchers. Patenting even more products.

Monsanto and "Round-up Ready Canola"

[adoll]

Canada has already had a problem with exactly this sort of patent. The case involved a farmer who was "caught" with a special strain of Canola growing on his farm. Well, it was really only growing on a small part of his farm that happened to border a farm that regularly used this special high-priced seed. The farmer claimed that the seed or pollen blew over his field without his knowledge nor consent.

Monsanto sued the farmer for "stealing" seed, he counter-sued Monsanto for "contaminating" his farm with GM canola. You can see a bit of the story here.

The end result? The farmer lost and was fined C$19000.

-AD

Patent procedures must improve first

[Utopia]

This post reminds of case between India & Pakistan and
the US-based Rice Tec company

Apparently Rice Tec was granted patents for 'Basmati Rice' - a fragrant variant of rice that had grown for centuries in central Indian Himalayan foothills and some parts of Pakistan.
As expected, they couldn't defend their patent claim in court.

Agricultural patents are a sensitive area because it effects a lot of third world enconomies.

I am not against patenting seeds, but a clear yardstick should be applied for verifying claims before granting patent registration. And considering the track record of US patent office this is not happening.

Re:Just a thought

[the eric conspiracy]

The real danger in this is that companies are designing plants that are only able to reproduce a limited number of times.

Nonsense. Almost all non-genengineered seeds sold to farmers today are hybrids that do not breed true. The fact is that farmers not been growing their own seeds for many, many years.

There is actually a substantial safety factor to self-extinguishing gencrops - by tying genetic mods to new genes you are less likely to get unexpected propagation of foreign genes in the wild.