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Monsanto Plant Patent Case Winds On
srw writes "A follow-up to a slashdot story from two years ago: The Supreme Court of Canada is willing to hear the case of Percy Schmeiser -- a Saskatchewan farmer accused of violating Monsanto's IP by growing their patented canola. This article contains more background."
Actually, the farmer says he never bought Mansanto seeds, the plants were growing in a ditch by the road, and that the plants contaminated the farmer's conventional canola (costing him the years crop.) If I were the farmer, I would have sued Mansanto for crop contamination.
Instead, it seems if some disgruntled seed saleman is pissed that you didn't want to buy their patented seed, he can just plant some on your property, and sue you for the cost after the fact. Now that's insane.
On the other hand, if the court rules for the farmer, what's to stop farmers from stealing small amounts of seed from a neighbor who bought the patented crop and growing it for enough years to have a full crop and then claiming that a bird pooped the seeds on their field. This would effectively destroy IP rights of all seed companies.
Honestly, I don't know what the correct decision here would be. Either result could have disasterous implications.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Hi,
This is not the only case going on right now - check this one out:
Farmer sent to prison over cotton seed
I'm personally not against GM-plants because they can help reducing the enviromental load, but this kind stories are very scary. A typical farmer has similar chances as a snowball in hell in to win a case against a Megacorp like Monsanto...
V.
rBGH, Fox News and Monsanto: "Milk it does Monsanto good." fired journalist
"They could not understand what was happening and told David Boylan,
a Murdoch manager sent by Fox to Florida, that a valid, well-sourced
news story was being stifled. Boylan's reply broke with all the traditions
of the Murdoch empire.
In a moment of insane candour, he told an unvarnished truth which should
be framed and stuck on the top of every television set.
"We paid $3 billion for these television stations," he snapped.
"We'll decide what the news is. NEWS IS WHAT WE SAY IT IS."
The CBC also has a link to the Schmeiser/Monsanto story it includes all sorts of backgrounder links including the full court documents from (at least) the original court case. It tells the story pretty completely from both sides, if you're willing to read the affidavits.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It's not quite that straight... Schmeisers story (the court documents give both sides pretty completely) is that he was spraying weeds with Roundup(tm) when he noticed that some of the canola in the area (which would have normally been killed by the herbicide) had survived --Finding that to be a bit weird, he sprayed a larger area and found a large patch that seemed to be roundup-resistant.. This appeared to be pretty much the area closest to the road.
The next summer, the seeds from the quarter section that he had sprayed were used to plant at least one of his quarter sections. This is the crop that Monsanto now claims to own. Part of the problem, however, is that the genetically modified seed has also contaminated the rest of his seed. If Monsanto wins a permanent injunction against Schmeiser ever using their seeds again, he'll not only have to turn over the seeds and profits from the mostly-monsanto patch... He'll also have to turn over any seeds with any monsanto contamination -- effectively, this will mean that he will have to destroy a couple of generations worth of breeding experiments because almost all of his stock now has at least a bit of monsanto seed in it.
Monsanto's claim was originally that he arranged (barter or sale) to have a monsanto-licensed farmer give him some of their roundup-ready seed (in violation of contract). Schmeiser claimed that it had appeared on his land, and he had the right to do what he wanted to with his crop. The (lower) courts decided that it didn't matter how the seed had landed on his land.. Monsanto had a patent on the seed, and nobody not licensed by them was allowed to use seeds with those genetics.
This decision could be especially problematic for some farmers because Canola is pretty much a weed. All sorts of farmers anywhere downwind from someone using Monsanto canola is likely to have at least a small proportion of genetically contaminated seed -- they could then have Monsanto going after them, as well.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Copied from e2, (idea) by vectormane, without permission. I hope he doesn't mind. I didn't want to link to e2 because it can't handle the load.
In other words, Monsanto is criminal, arguably evil, certainly negligent, and generally a bunch of right bastards. GM foods FUD notwithstanding, these guys are bad people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not a case about accidental/natural seed contamination. That question has already been settled conclusively: natural/accidental seed contamination does not constitute patent infringement. End of that story. (this is covered in the http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fct/2002/2002fca309. htmlFederal Court of Appeal's ruling.) However, Percy Schmeiser is not arguing that the plants in question growing in his fields (in 1998) were an instance of accidental contamination. He is arguing that the came into his hands via accidental contamination (in 1997), but he does not dispute that once he discovered he had it growing on his property and had identified it as glyphosate resistant, seeds were harvested from it and used to plant his next year's crop. Note that the claim against him is "patent infringement" i.e. use of a patented invention without the patent-holder's permission. It is not "illicitly getting his hands on Monsanto's seed". There is no law against getting your hands on genetically modified canola seed. There is, however, a law against planting it and cultivating it unless you hold a patent to do so. Which is why he's lost the first two rounds of the case.
The following paragraphs from the first ruling may be illuminating as to what Percy Schmeiser's position actually is:
[38] As we have noted Mr. Schmeiser testified that in 1997 he planted his canola crop with seed saved from 1996 which he believed came mainly from field number 1. Roundup-resistant canola was first noticed in his crop in 1997, when Mr. Schmeiser and his hired hand, Carlysle Moritz, hand-sprayed Roundup around the power poles and in ditches along the road bordering fields 1, 2, 3 and 4. These fields are adjacent to one another and are located along the east side of the main paved grid road that leads south to Bruno from these fields. This spraying was part of the regular farming practices of the defendants, to kill weeds and volunteer plants around power poles and in ditches. Several days after the spraying, Mr. Schmeiser noticed that a large portion of the plants earlier sprayed by hand had survived the spraying with the Roundup herbicide.
[39] In an attempt to determine why the plants had survived the herbicide spraying, Mr. Schmeiser conducted a test in field 2. Using his sprayer, he sprayed, with Roundup herbicide, a section of that field in a strip along the road. He made two passes with his sprayer set to spray 40 feet, the first weaving between and around the power poles, and the second beyond but adjacent to the first pass in the field, and parallel to the power poles. This was said by him to be some three to four acres in all, or "a good three acres". After some days, approximately 60% of the plants earlier sprayed had persisted and continued to grow. Mr. Schmeiser testified that these plants grew in clumps which were thickest near the road and began to thin as one moved farther into the field.
[40] Despite this rsult Mr. Schmeiser continued to work field 2, and, at harvest, Carlysle Moritz, on instruction from Mr. Schmeiser, swathed and combined field 2. He included swaths from the surviving canola seed along the roadside in the first load of seed in the combine which he emptied into an old Ford truck located in the field. That truck was covered with a tarp and later it was towed to one of Mr. Schmeiser's outbuildings at Bruno. In the spring of 1998 the seed from the old Ford truck was taken by Mr. Schmeiser in another truck to the Humboldt Flour Mill ("HFM") for treatment. After that, Mr. Schmeiser's testimony is that the treated seed was mixed with some bin-run seed and fertilizer and then used for planting his 1998 canola crop.