Slashdot Mirror
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."
Thank god the EU has some humanity and dignity left. I praise their stance on GM foods which is basically denying them completely, even wilfully paying fines brought by the WTO to not allow GM food trade.
Why would any nation allow, let alone a single farmer choose to use patented seeds under these restrictions? I'll answer my own question - GREED.
I hope Monsanto looses this one in a big, utterly devastating, way.
Monsanto said canola plants grown from its genetically altered seed had grown along a ditch on the Schmeiser farm in violation of the company's patent. Schmeiser contends the GM seed blew off a truck or came from someone else's field but Monsanto argued that's impossible. Schmeiser said he never bought Monsanto seed.
(...) At issue are the patent rights to Roundup Ready canola, a genetically modified strain resistant to a herbicide that would normally kill the plants used to produce cooking oil.
Beyond the obvious issue of whether genetically altered plants should be patentable, there is also a simpler, common sense issue at stake: who was responsible for the contamination?
If the seed blew in accidentally, contaminating the farmer's own breed of canola, there is no reason the farmer should be held responsible. Otherwise, what would stop an unscrupulous patent-holder from "accidentally" spreading their patented product all over the area, and then demanding compensation from the unsuspecting farmers?
There's one simple way to test whether the seeding was intentional: did the farmer use herbicides on his crops? If the answer is yes, he clearly knew that Monsanto's herbicide-resistant plants were growing in his field. If the answer is no, he got no economic benefit from growing Monsanto's plants and should be left alone.
Honestly, I don't know what the correct decision here would be
OMG!!! You don't know what the correct decision is?????
Let's see, choose between:
Noone being allowed to grow a garden
VS
The profits of a company
Holy shit - you must be an American. Only a born and raised money bleeding capitalist would think that is a hard decision. Geez.
This would effectively destroy IP rights of all seed companies.
Those are the risks you take when you try to patent life.
NO CARRIER
You're fighting two camps here, the luddite camp that wants to fight genetically engineered foods, and the IP people, who want to fight logic.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I'm sorry, but I'm sick to death of biotech companies experimenting on us with GM foods, etc for no better reason than profit.
They'll willingly gamble with all of our lives, betting the pot that their crops are safe to us and the environment yet they'll be the first to walk away and just shrug their shoulders if something goes wrong.
I recently watched a programme about how Novartis was screwing Korean leukemia sufferers over the cost of their Glivec/Gleevec drug treatment. The very patients that were part of the company's clinical trials are now being fleeced by the company, blackmailed into paying tens of thousands of US dollars a year for a drug that they themselves helped bring to the market! This for a drug that costs pennies to mass produce.
In fact, the whole Glivec issue is such a big deal in Korea (ask any Korean that you know) that although it's a life-saving drug, the name Glivec is now synonymous with death - that's how much Novartis's greed has pissed off an entire nation.
(For more, check out this Google search: novartis glivec korea.
These assholes seriously piss me off. Profits are one thing, but profits before people isn't just immoral and unethical, it's disgusting.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Your point about a few companies controlling the world's food supply is very valid and should be of a great concern to all of us. There is a disturbing trend among of the companies that genetically alter seed to desire to produce grains (canola is an oilseed not a grain, but it still applies) that are sterile and do not reproduce. This could be seen as a good thing, since genetically modified plants then cannot "escape" into nature. However, as growing the GMO grains becomes more and more prevailant and traditional strains no longer grown (either because they don't produce as well, or are too tall or whatever), then that makes farmers have to pay for their seed every year, rather than hold back a portion and replant like they used to. Even more effected by this are third world countries who will be completely at the mercy of these companies. They are really worried the trends and "progression" being made by companies like Monsanto.
Just as Palladium, patents, and digital restrictions managenent do not bode well computer and software users, these types of genetic patents are no less negative. I personally have nothing against GMO food and technologies, but I think we should seriously consider the impacts of patenting and controlling such technologies.
I hope the courts rule in favor of the farmer. Until about 5-10 years ago in Canada, there were no IP rights for seed companies. Such rights are contrived and artificial, I believe.
Michael
Actually, only if the court decides in Monsanto's favor will it be a disaster. This isn't some inanimate matter patented, but life. And life will find a way to spread. Once released, if it doesn't die out, it will spread. Look at various insects (killer bees, fire ants, mosquitos).
This is only a problem because the plant is patented. Virtually every other plant on earth is "public domain" so there's no problem about those when they grow on someone else's land. Why not just say that it's stupid and irresponsible to try to patent species of plants, not let anyone do it, and then leave the issue be? Companies will have the freedom to create these GM crops (thus placating the GM advocates) but have little incentive to do so since they will be available for free (thus placating the anti-GM campaigners).
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
You're mistaking capitalism for monarchy. Monarchies arise out of lawlessness when feudal lords accumulate enough power to form city-states, which then coalesce into nation-states, of which they are the monarchs. Now, in the US, we are laissez-faire enough so that we are almost lawless sometimes. Thus, it has been possible for corporate monarchies to arise, forming the market-states. Monsanto rules the agricultural market-state, RIAA the recording market-state, and so on. An ineffective government could allow the market-states to coalesce into a nation-state just as traditional monarchies did. Some argue that this has already happened--that our republic which arose in the wake of a monarchy has been completely co-opted by a loose association of monarchist market-states.
Capitalism, OTOH, is where the government establishes a framework in which a sufficient number of individual actors compete to provide goods and services, but without forming enough power to become market-states. Those who argue that capitalism needs to be replaced, when confronted with the question "replaced with what?" usually have one of two responses: 1. A blank stare, or anger followed by a re-affirmation that capitalism needs to be replaced, or 2. Socialism/Communism/Leftism/"the people". Invariably, "the people" is a euphemism for their people who are almost always Socialists/Communists/... etc.
The truth of the matter is that capitalism doesn't need to be replaced--it needs to be reinstated.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I don't understand why they'd have to. Percy Schmeiser has already testified in court that the glyphosate resistant canola seeds growing in his fields in 1998 were 1) planted there by an employee of his; 2) were taken from plants growing in his fields in 1997 which he had identified as being glyphosate resistant. The court took his account of the facts as being the canonical one. They ruled that even with the facts as he stated them, his company infringed the patent by planting glyphosate-resistant canola seed, that was known, or should have been known to be, glyphosate resistant.
So,they have nothing to prove, and wouldn't be allowed to try if they could. The fact-finding in the case is done; it can't be reopened at the appeal level. Percy Schmeiser won it. His version of the facts stands. And so far the courts have ruled in Monsanto's favour even with his account of the facts.
they are shaking in their large, multi-billion dollar boots because a farmer from Saskatchewan is about to bring part of them down.
I very much doubt it. They won the first two rounds and legally, their case sure looks pretty ironclad (IANAL, though). Legally, Percy has not a leg to stand on. He used a patented invention. He admits it. Says he knew what it was, too. Not a lot of wiggle room there. That's why he not only lost, but got assigned costs, which is the court's way of say "you really lost, and please stop wasting our time".
The following excerpt's from the first court ruling might clarify my claim's about Mr. Schmeiser's account of the facts: