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

Constitutional Law pays off

[BrodyVess]

AAAAAAAHHHH! I had hoped this woulnd't happen. I just spent hours upon hours of my life writing a 12 page Constitutional Law paper over this very case, for this very reason.

A little background-
in 1930 congress said you could patent asexually reproducing plants with the Plant Patent Act.
In 1978 this was extended to Bacteria with Chakarbarty v. Diamond, Chakarbarty patented bacteria that disolved oil.
In 1970 Congress passes the Plant Variety Protection Act. This allows the patenting of sexually reproducing plants. However, some key provisions- Farmers can replant their seed, and companies have to release GM seed to seed banks for research.

Here is the problem with the JEM case- it allows UTILITY patents, the same as on any invention, on Plants. Not only is this CONTRARY to the PVPA, but it gies companies 17 years of exclusive use. The dangers here- farmers cant replant seed. If you dont understand why this is dangerous, you aren't close enough to your agrarian root. Put down the palmpilot and talk to a farmer.
The courts have overturned congressional intent. With todays "conservative" court this is becoming more of a danger. Some scholors would even go so far as to say that Rhenquist is more judicially active than Warren, just in the opposite political direction. Scary, aint it?

This also has wide ranging Intelecutal Property implications. If you can patent plants, how about code? How about your genetic sequence? Can I patent my genes and sue someone that happens to have a very close sequence? If there's much response to this topic I'll post more indepth. like I said, I've got pages and pages sitting on my computer, and waaaaay too many hours invested in this case.