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."
Clearly, they planted the evidence...
I'm going to move my DirecTV dish on to my neighbor's roof so he has to pay the bill. No GMO! No GMO! err... what did I just eat?
Random mutation could have made my genes change in a way that Monsanto's later efforts are anticipated. So I am possibly Monsanto's property, some time in the future. Or, I would have to prove that my genes are older, so it would be prior art.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Interesting how they test for the plant - spray the crop and if it dies you're innocent.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
This is a classic micocausim of why all patents are bad in general, and why arguments like the "inventor has no inventive" ... and arguments like nobody "would invest in such and such research" and "no pharmacutical would spend R&D for cures" without a patent, are bullshit. (excuse the language, but I'm tired of being spoonfeed this garbage) People just assume it's true without even thinking about the range of consequences patents cause, and then try and ram them down everyones throat.
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.
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.
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.
You grow a plant in a field... plant grows...
Plants produce seeds, which get carried off by
1. Wind
2. Animals
3. Vehicels
then reproduce into other plants.
The answer is obvious
Sue the
Wind for illegal distrubution of IP
The animals for illegal distrubution of IP
The vehicel manufactor for creating a safe harbor for the distrubution of IP
Sue the plants them selves for reproducing without a license.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
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."
It's common practice in farming to retain seed from each crop to plant in the next year. What Monsanto is effectively doing is denying the farmer the right to carry on a traditional practice. The only thing the farmer is doing purposefully, apparently, is growing from the seed harvested on his own land. That traditional practice needs to be fully protected in law.
And Monsanto is showing absolute and utter ignorance when it claims there is no way for their seed to have escaped in any way. While I can't say whether this farmer "expedited" any cross pollination or cross seeding, I do know from knowing people who have worked on farms in the rural area I grew up in, that such a thing was common. It varied depending on the type of crop. Some crop types could spread their genetics far more easily than others. I do know corn was one of those that was a problem in that area. But it wasn't a big problem in the sense that anyone might get sued because their field got infested from a neighbor's crop. They were more worried that their field might have a mix of different kinds of corn.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I recently read a book that discussed agri-genetic engineering, specifically potatoes, and Monsanto's extreme measures to enforce their IP protection on these genetically engineered products. The author bought, grew, and studied some of these specially engineered plants.
The book combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to nature. As part of his research, Pollan visited the Monsanto company headquarters and planted some of their NewLeaf-brand potatoes in his garden--seeds that had been genetically engineered to produce their own insecticide. Though they worked as advertised, he made some startling discoveries, primarily that the NewLeaf plants themselves are registered as a pesticide by the EPA, and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a interesting aside, he explains how a global desire for consistently perfect French fries contributes to both damaging monoculture and the genetic engineering necessary to support it. There are many parallels with genetic engineering of plants, and the irresponsible proliferation of antibiotics (and the diseases that become increasingly immune to them).
If interested: The book is called Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan. The book discusses four or five influential plants that have 1) shaped our history of humans and 2) that we have significantly altered theirs. I believe the plants are: potatoes, tulips, apples, and [interestingly enough] marijuana.
-J. R. Rogivue
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.
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
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".
I bet if I patent my unique and viable sperm then I can finally enter into contract agreements for use with my spouse....
All we've heard is that the GE plants were growing in a ditch & they contaminated his crops. Here are the court decisions. My basic understanding is that they're arguing about different things... so yes Monsanto should keep it's IP rights (whether this is a good thing or not is a different discussion) and yes, farmers shouldn't have to suffer from contaminated crops.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
1- Genetically engineer a highly contagious but harmless virus.
2- Let it spread.
3- Sue everyone who is infected because they are illegally copying and distributing your (patented) work. And optionally sell a cure at an extremely high price, since it's not a life-threatening situation.
Even if they choose to call it canola, the farmer is still getting raped.
What the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is to Moe's Bar.
Both are corrupt in their own way, but the scope of the potential damage, the feasibility of remedying the problem, and the immorality (if any) of Microsoft pales in comparison to Monsteranto. The latter has been on so many people's hit lists for years before Microsoft even existed, and for many good reasons. Just google around, you'll see what I'm talking about. This is by no means the first case where they've tried to pull something like this. If there's ever a "new American revolution" Monsanto should be the first corporation to lose its charter. Boston corn party, anyone?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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.'"
LOL, that's one of the funniest things I've read on /...that is, if you're joking.
If not, then you obviously have a pretty sorry understanding of evolution and mutation. Plants are harvested en-mass. That means thousands or millions of them at once. The probability of such a mutatation as you describe occuring in one plant infinitesimally small. The probability of that same mutation occuring in enough plants in a harvest to have any significant effect is essentially zero. Also, for plants that are being maintained in huge numbers by humans, the forces of natural selection act quite interestingly. Namely, those plants which exhibit phenotypes that make us plant more of them will be selected for. (hence, the ensured survival of marijuanna plants as long as humans are around).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Sympathy? For Percy Schmeiser?
:|
I used to live in the same area of Saskatchewan as this man, and let me tell you this, there aren't too many people that actually know the guy who are feeling *any* sympathy for him. He's a snake-oil salesman and a get-rich-quick bum. All his life he's done nothing at all productive, and now suddenly he's put on the "poor, overworked, underpaid, threatened-by-the-man farmer" act? Pfft. May he get what's coming to him.
I also realize there is a good chance this will secure me some bad karma, but I'm honestly not trolling
Writer of I love you virus sues for copyright infringement.
"People just kept distributing copies of my IP" the author claimed earlier today.
Obviously Monsanto is at fault here. They are honestly trying to argue that seeds can be controlled by humans. Heck, humans can't even control the seeds in their own loins, much less ones growing wild in the wind and water.
Monsanto can't prove that they didn't contaminate his field, and they are shaking in their large, multi-billion dollar boots because a farmer from Saskatchewan is about to bring part of them down.
Why slashdot? Why not?
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"?
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.
Text from the Google Groups Link:
"I've changed the title, since this is really a separate thread and has been for a while. I thought it might be worth summarizing the current
state of the argument as I see it.
The case seems to me to raise two separate issues:
1. What legal rule was the judge trying to lay down. This seems to me quite unclear, since he appears to be simultaneously saying that
Schmeiser does and does not own the same crop. I think there is a possible intepretation that makes it a sensible rule, but I can't tell if that is the one he intended.
2. What actually happened:
Schmeiser's version, accepted by his supporters:
Schmeiser doesn't want roundup ready canola growing in his fields, doesn't normally use roundup on canola. RR canola showed up in his fields either because pollen blew into them from the fields of other farmers who used RR or because some seed spilled in the road next to his fields and sprouted and pollenized his canola.
This account appears unbelievable for two different reasons:
A. According to Monsanto's testing, the tested plants were over 90% RR, according to Schmeiser they were 60%. Either way, the idea that a field
of RR several miles away would provide 90%, or 60%, or 1% of the pollen floating around a 300 acre field of canola is implausible. The idea that
accidentally sprouting canola from seeds that happened to fall out in the road could provide 1% probably isn't absurd, at least for plants
close to the road, but it's hard to see how they could provide anything close to 60%, given that they are, again, competing with a solid mass of
hundreds of acres of canola that has been deliberately planted, presumably watered, etc.
It's worth noting that although the Monsanto testing was of plants right along the road (because they could get them without trespassing),
Schmeiser's own testing was not so limited--and he reported 60%.
So Schmeiser's account appears strikingly inconsistent with either side's claim about how much of the canola he was growing was RR. To
avoid that, you have to argue that the tiny fraction of RR explained on his account somehow rapidly out competed the ordinary canola. But since Schemeiser wasn't using roundup, and RR's only advantage, apparently, is superior resistence to roundup, it is hard to see how that could happen.
B. According to the testimony at trial, if I understand it correctly, Schmeiser (and his employee) took the following series of actions:
1. They sprayed part of a field of canola with roundup; 60% of the plants survived.
2. They took the seed from the surviving 60%, stored it, used it (along with enough other seed) to plant the whole area he was planting with
canola the next year.
That makes perfectly good sense if Schmeiser was deliberately trying to breed his own strain of RR. The only inconsistent element is that it would have made more sense for him not to mix the two seeds, but to use the RR seed for part of his area and the non RR for the rest. But it isn't clear that he didn't--"mix" may merely mean "use some of each."
And in any case, doing that would make it even more obvious what he was doing, whereas this way he could produce a high RR crop in one year,
repeat to get higher the next.
But it makes no sense at all if he objected to RR, as he claims he does.
If he doesn't want it, why does he deliberately use the seed that he knows is high RR--from the plants that didn't die when sprayed with
Roundup--instead of deliberately avoiding using that particular seed and planting his next year's crop with seed from other parts of his field?
Looking at both A and B, the obvious explanation is that Schmeiser is lying. Either he planted RR seed bought without license from a neighbor
who was growing it--presumably what Monsanto is trying to prevent--or he deliberately tried to breed his own RR canola, or both.
So far, nobody here has offered any other explanation of these facts, although that doesn't prove that no other explanation is possible. Nor
has anyone shown that I am misreading the reported facts of the case, although that too is possible.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/"
Actually, the court found that the overall resistance was so high that the only explanation was that it was the roundup resistant plants which had been deliberately planted and it was the non gm canola which had accidentally contaminated the crop. The Court found there was no way the GM crop could be explained as accidental contamination. Now, I suppose someone could have snuck onto the guys property at night, taken an unseeded field and planted it with GM canola just so they could then proceed to sue him, but that strikes me as a weeee bit unlikely.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
This is a pretty clear example of why you should NEVER be able to patent DNA.
At least one developing nation (South Africa, I think) has already outlawed GE crops, because of the IP concerns involved. What would happen to S.A. if these crops spread on their own and became the dominant species?
The developing nation would no longer be able to grow any food without paying royalties to Monsanto, which they couldn't afford. People would starve. Look at what happend with S.A. and AIDs drugs. I think that showed pretty clearly how little respect some companies have for life.
You should be able to patent a process for modifying DNA. You should never be able to patent the actual organism. If this means that you can get corporate funding for X, oh well. Apply for a grant.
Hell, what happens if someone else patents your DNA? Do you have to pay them royalties if you want to have kids? This is stupid.
BTW, someone else patenting your DNA isn't as unlikely as you might think. It's not like Monsanto developed the DNA for all their crops from scratch. What happens when you participate in some successful cancer/AIDS/whatever research, where they find you have just the right gene they need?
Life is too short to proofread.
Now that there is growing talk of gene therapy for humans, these cases will be of more consequence than IP and agriculture alone.
Suppose your body has been subjected some years from now to patented gene therapy.
a) what kind of usage restrictions would companies dare to claim on their IP? Will it be possible that they'll ask you to remove the patented gene from your body if, for example, you stopped paying them monthly treatment fees?
More likely,
will they introduce combinations of "gene therapy+required antibiotics" similar to what happens with crop seeds [when you buy a GM crop because it is resistant to an, also patented, herbicide]. The implications would be that your survival could be at risk if you stop taking the supplemental medications that make it possible for you to live with the "therapeutic" gene. By raising the prices of the supplement a pharmacorp could "drive out of business" gene therapy patients who no longer could pay for the supplement or (more likely) loot the treasury if the patients are on Medicare. Would any representative dare to vote against dishing out funding for the supplement if this vote threatens lives of current patients?
b) What if the therapeutic genes find their way into your children (even if they weren't supposed to). Would your children have to pay fees to the pharmacorp? Would you have to pay a license fee to have children?
In case-based judicial systems current developments in GM patent cases will set the stage for what scale of wrongdoing will be allowed in the future when GM touches us even more personally.
you patent the engeneering process for whatever you're making. So Masanto (or whatever) could still create their modified seeds but couldn't sue some farmer into the ground for collecting seeds that blew onto his land.
50 to 100 years from now when company "X" is granted a patent on blue roses. Some start growing in your garden one day, that'll be $19.95/month please, or we'll have the ATF come burn your yard down (and kill your family if you resist or live in Waco).
Mendel's descendents (OK, he was a monk, so relatives' descendents) will be sued retroactively for IP theft, every farmer with a spreadsheet will be put in Federal Prison for life in violation of the DMCA.
I voted for these guys when, exactly?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Monsanto should have to pay the farmer for damages because their genetically modified cra^hop has contaminated his land. Now he can't grow a normal crop that isn't tainted with their seed and who knows what effect their genetics could have even on other crops. Could their canola pollen cross pollinate with other species? I've seen flowers in my garden a dark rose single layer
petal rose and a light pink multi layer rose cross pollinate over a year through no effort of myself and the next year I had a black multi-petal rose.
I was utterly fascinated how easy it was for them to cross pollinate. Now if a company comes along and has artificially genetically altered crops that contaminate mine -- that have _tresspassed_ on my land, Monsanto should be paying full damages.
If Monsanto wants the crop destroyed, I could live with that, but I also say that they have to pay the farmer full price for what the farmer's land would have produced and give the farmer non-contaminated seeds to restart their crop. I could see Monsanto being liable for potentially years of lost profits if they want to force the farmer to destroy his crop.
I don't like the idea of forced destruction --- but if that's the decision, monsanto should pay full restitution until the farm is back to normal production. They can't have it both ways.
How is it that there is so much injustice in the world?