Slashdot Mirror
Iraq law Requires Seed Licenses
Doc Ruby writes "The American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer, updated Iraq's intellectual property law to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection.' The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, newly illegal. Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically modified seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from IP developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, shared freely like agricultural 'open source.' Other IP provisions for technology in the law further integrate Iraq into the American IP economy."
That's ridiculous. While I do fully support the use of transgenic crops, I find it silly to force farmers into buying something they may not want.
Giving them the choice to buy GM seed is fine; forcing them to buy GM seed and abide by North American terms and conditions is debilitating.
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
I hope the Iraqi's enjoy this new "Freedom". I wonder why the US isn't using more non-GMO seeds 3which don't have the IP restrictions?
How ironic, The root of most civilizations comes from the so-called "Cradle of Civilization" which is a region of Iraq located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
How far do you think we would have progressed if the creators of these technologies demanded we use Their technologies and pay a license fee to use those technologies?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Or they could, you know, NOT USE THOSE SEEDS, and instead continue using the strains they've been using for the last few thousand years or so. But then we wouldn't have our little whole-cloth pretext for a little political bashing, would we?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Maybe you haven't seen this story/editorial from Harper's Magazine.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The "write up" is confusing. Are the Iraqis being forced to use the GM seeds? Can't just just continue using what they've been using?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Only if the farmers are using GM seeds. If they use normal seeds, then there is no problem with holding back seed for next year.
Typical bias.
Be it software or grain, the rules are the same - if you don't like the license, don't use the product - use a competing product with a license you can accept.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The U.S. regime will most likely criminalize the use of the olds seeds. And even if they do not its only a matter of time before the new seeds will "find" a way into their crops and the patent holders will begin to extort the iraqi farmers. Think its a conspiracy theory? It's already happening. IN CANADA
It is only illegal to save the GM seeds from one year to the next. Those farmers using the GM seeds are bound to the terms of a contract - just like someone using the GPL is bound to those terms.
A farmer not buying GM seeds is not compelled legally to do a damn thing different.
The problem is that snce a small part of their crop is contaminated by GM seeds, there's no practical way of getting rid of them. They don't have the option to choose not to use them if they've used them in the past (when the IP laws were different), or if any of their regular seeds ever got mixed up with GM seeds by mistake.
-jim
when your choice is to use these seeds or starve?
Call me crazy, but I think not.
I know this is /. but the problem especially in this one is that most people here are shooting from the hip and not bothering to read the story.
.. and any changes you make are passed on to others .. who again improve them. This one is about companies getting something that was produced by someone else .. making small changes and then trying to licence it back - license something that was like GPL and not thier total IP in the first place. Iraq rightly IMO had laws against this.
The Story is about the US changing the laws regarding GM Seeds - not the Iraqis changing them. Previously in Iraq (and it still should be) it was illegal to sell a seed and say that you could not save the seeds from the plants. It is a pretty simple principle - you buy the seed, you can breed from it.
One way of looking at it is that seeds always have been kind of GPL - you get them for free
It should be that if GM seed companies don't like the Iraqi law then they should not sell thier seeds in Iraq.
Nobody in Iraq would want to be controlled by a foreign country and have thier food supplies dependent on seeds from that country.
Read the story dudes.
Hopefully they will send armies of lawyers over. To Iraq. To argue... with angry Iraqis... who have AK-47's....
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Without getting into details of the patent theory, the 4 most celebrated reasons why patents exist are (according to late Judge Giles Rich)
- Incentive to inovate - back in the 1790s, there wasn't any big pharmaceutical laboratory or Del Monte, so to allow inventors to spend their time inventing and not wasting their talents down the factory, patents were a nice way to insure some subsides...
- Incentive to disclose - the bargain between the patentee and the PTO is protection v. disclosure. Hence, the new discovery is readily available for the rest of mankind, and promote the progress of arts and sciences
- Incentive to comercialize - the patent gives a right to exclude people from using the patented invention, making the inventor the manager of his rights (either licensing to other company or enjoying is own monopoly of distribution)
- Incentive to design around -- Because once you know what is patented, it can give you new ideas. Unfortunatly, it has been struck down somewhat by the so called doctrine of equivalent
More info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patents ;http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/ipr/pa
However, the US have really blown a fuse here... It is enslaving a foreign country to the almighty US. For the oil, well, I could understand the general purpose, even though I do NOT agree with it. But this is just mean and wicked...
Oh well, 51% cannot be wrong. Or can they ?
Just my 2 Eurocents...
As I read the article, there is nothing which forces the farmer in Iraq to make use of IP Protected GM seeds. They may continue to use domestic or free varieties. The only issue is that in the past there was no legal protection for seed crop IP in Iraq, and now it is available.
It seems in the end, that if they want to re-use seed crops, they need only refrain from purchasing those which require a license. While in the technology industry, customers may require that you provide products which include IP that must be licensed, When you're making food the rules are different:
You may need to license software from Microsoft to make a product that works on your customer's computer.
You do not need to license grain from ConAgra to make flour that my stomach can digest.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Give me a break :/
If any "IP" lawyers want to go over to Iraq and start filing lawsuits, I'll pay their airfares. Better that we fight the lawyers in Iraq rather than deal with them on our own soil.
This is not esoterica like software licences, this is basic ingredients for living, and these [insert strong epithet of choice here, my personal best candidate starts with a w] want to control it all. Makes the RIAA and fellow idiots look politely selfless by contrast.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Well as far as Biotechs are concerned, it is a delicate subject. When someone creates a new chemical or element (e.g. the slashdotium), there is no question about the invention factor.
But when a laboratory just decypher the gene pool of something that existed, and slightly change it to make it patentable, it's a harder question. Ex. : when RiceTech patented Basmati rice. [biotech-info.net]
This patent finally got revised but the problem is still there. As a lawyer, I just can't help but wondering how you can make it illegal not to manage your crop the way you want. Just like the rest of the IP field, the more it goes and the more we're headed to a world of licensing instead of ownership...
Just my two €urocents...
I believe this means that this only applies to patented seeds. Of course, the law may or may not say anything about the patentability of common, naturally occurring seeds (eg. texas-based Ricetec's attempt to patent several varieties of basmati rice).
So you're saying that since food is a necessity, no one should be allowed to have an incentive to develop more efficient food producing technologies? I'm not sure I follow your reasoning.
I'm no fan of either the US invasion of Iraq or of the shennanigans of companies like Monsanto, but the revised IP law simply doesn't say what the article says it says. The relevant provision is on p.22, section 66, par. B. It prohibits farmers from re-using the seed of protected varieties only. It doesn't prohibit them from re-using the seed that they've always used. And contrary to what some posters have claimed, Monsanto and other such companies cannot acquire ownership of traditional varieties. The same law provides clear criteria for patents that allow patenting only of newly developed varieties. So unless patents are granted improperly (a different, though as we know, significant problem), farmers in Iraq can go right on re-using their seed just as they always have.
Indeed, I was struck by one provision of this law, which grants fewer rights to the patent holder than does US patent law. Section 8 on p.3. allows people who started using or manufacturing, or even preparing to use or manufacture, something covered by a patent before the issuance of the patent, to continue to do so! In other words, no submarine patents! In some ways, this new patent law is actually progressive.
By the way, parts of this law sound to me like they were not written by a native speaker of English. Maybe I just don't know the technical terminology of plant breeding. Is it normal in English to talk about the "education" of a plant? This sounds like a mistranslation from another language to me.
just ask this guy
Wind
It will be here soon, too. Pollen is airborne. Eventually you won't be able to save your own seed, and they have proven they can control the law and court system to the extent that if the pollen infects your crops, you "stole" their "patented" IP. It's why those of us who have been against this have been speaking up about it. Their plant "IP" law is viral, and you can't get away from it once it's released into the wild to grow. Google starlink corn, canola, superweed for starters.
You cannot both "support it" and think you or anyone else can have any practical alternative. Joe farmer down the street has IP protected corn, you don't, next year the seed you save from your own crop that had nothing to do with the patented stuff will have a certain percentage of "their" genetic material in it. You lose. Every crop you try to grow will become more infected. The wind and the law won't allow it. It's only a matter of time now before global food monopolies. And in iraq you can see they aren't even waiting for it to spread semi naturally, they are just mandating it, showing exactly where they have always been coming from, exactly like we have warned against and been told it was "tinfoil hat" or "luddism". Now here, you see the proof, what they intend for not only iraq, but the planet, as much as they can.
Let's go to original from which you cited those words, and look at the context.
... ... by 30 m. Therefore canola pollen can move at least this distance....9 6.htm
... ... have been too small to capture the full spread of altered ... "It's the longest distance ... Most previous studies of gene flow have been done on far ...S pread+for+Miles-status-25-newsID-277... - 24k - Cached - Similar pages
The issue for Iraq is whether the farmer can save the seed grown once an agribiz claims they have found their genes in samples from his farm.
The answer was no, in the Canadian case.
He said he didn't buy the GM seed and that pollen spreads. Monsanto claimed it doesn't spread.
Current research says he's right.
QUOTE, a couple hits from a Google search:
GENE TRANSFER BETWEEN CANOLA (BRASSICA NAPUS) AND RELATED WEED
www.isb.vt.edu/brarg/brasym96/brown
Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study Finds
gene-flow study
www.onlypunjab.com/ fullstory904-insight-Genes+From+Engineered+Grass+
END QUOTE
Too late for him in this court case though.
Monsanto, because of the legal choice they used, did not get to take his bank account and his farm -- but they did stop him from saving the seeds that grew in his field to reuse.
The rest of the quote you cited is:
"Outcome:The Supreme Court held that the patent was valid and defendant/appellant Schmeiser infringed. However, because Monsanto elected to seek profits as a remedy, and the infringer Schmeiser earned no profit from the invention, plaintiff Monsanto is entitled to nothing."
That's "$Nothing" not "nothing at all" -- and that's the important part.
Schmeiser's neighbors growing the same species bought "Roundup Ready" seed. He did not. They sprayed with Roundup, killing everything but their Monsanto GM plants. He did not. All the plants flowered and set seed (Monsanto should have changed the timing of flowering, to really have some kind of control on genetic movement, eh?)
More from that study:
"Seed movement. Canola plants have small seed (approximately 200 seeds/g). During normal farm operations the seed will inevitably be lodged in farm machinery and transported around the farm and surrounding area. Seed also can be distributed by animals and birds, and seed can be lost while being transported for processing. In the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.A., spring canola has only recently been grown commercially and already volunteer plants have been observed several kilometers from where they originated."
Remember -- once you know, or have reason to know, that your farm _may_ be producing some seed containing patented material, you're breaking the law if you save the seed growing in your own fields.
Once you know the stuff spreads, goes into weedy relatives of the crop (and back into crops elsewhere), spreads by birds, spreads in equipment tires and harvesting machinery that's taken from one field to another -- well, you know, eh?
Way back watermelon as we know them were nearly brought to extinction by a form of blight. Universities and such had developed breeds resistant to the disease, but either flavor, color, shape, and even the seeds were radically different from what we think of as the watermelon.
Frustrated, in about four years my great grandfather and cross-bred a breed that had black seeds, a red core, full flavor, and striped green that was nearly impervious to disease.
In his memoirs he comments on how people are amazed at how he didn't acquior a fortune on his creation. He talks about how natural life, such as watermelons, were on patentable and all anyone needed to produce them was the seed widely available from one of his melons.
Whenever stories like these crop up, I think about how rich my family could have been, and am always greatful that we aren't everytime I see a youngster enjoying a fresh cut melon. I am also grieved by the fact that patents like this even exist. And that companies, not the farmers, hold them and reap the financial benefit from them.
How long will it be before we will have to pay a licensing fee to cook with these IP laden herbs and vegetables?
==================
Hippie Logger Jock
==================
and any so-called "infected" crop can easily be removed
Have you ever grown a plant? Or bred a plant? Do you have any idea how stupid this sounds? You can't tell by the seeds which ones are infected. That means you plant all your seeds, and now you have to monitor your crops to see if they're infected. Depending on the degree of the rogue polinaztion, you could find yourself killing sizeable portions of the plants you worked hard to get started.
And what if the infection is not easily visible, but could be detected via genetic testing? Guess what? You're fucked. Not all traits of a parent show up in the offspring.
I can't believe people take the attitude you're expressing here. Do you realize Mansanto has already developed and patented a technology that has been called "terminator"? The technology can be used across a wide species to introduce the characteristic of plants producing sterile seeds. They will bring that tech to market, once the idea of patenting plants takes root. I can't wait until that trait escapes into the wild.
I'm not anti-GMO's at all. But mansanto is one company that consistantly goes too far. And this "ip" law, what's next? Patenting air? This is absurdity and I'm shocked that people don't see the slippery slope this is. Protecting patents for inventions is one thing, changing the rules of nature through law, depriving farmers of an age old right, fuck that. Let mansanto make money somewhere else, don't legislate monopolies into existance. This is insane.
-- the rates are not necessarily low, it's a huge variable, it can be from a lot, to very little, but the bottom line is, if it's in your crop they claim it's *theirs* no matter how it got there.
.. well.. laughable. Junk science. It's ludicrous. If what you claim is true,please, go up to canuckistan and make you an easy billion or more "easily removing" canola superweed for folks, you should be able to clean up with your superior skills and advanced agronomy techniques.
-- plants haven't been patented for hundreds of thousands of years
-- "easily removed" is simply
-- the cost of even testing is huge, and guess who pays it
-- to use the word "stealing" referring to someone who's crop got infected is blaming the victim, it's like if someone chucked a baseball through your window, you had to pay for the window, and they guy who threw it calls you a thief for stealing his baseball and not giving it back, and the way this plant IP law works it's exactly like that. It is pure nuts, unfair, stupid, misguided, harmful, and does not promote the useful arts and sciences, it promotes the establishment of a small handful of international corporations owning the planets food supply.
This action by the US government and it's appointed stooge puppets in iraq is heinous and proves what utter corrupt bastards they are, along with the companies pushing this scheme.
Once again we have proven we have the best government big corporate money can buy. You can approve of their actions, I disapprove, so we'll leave it at that.
What makes plant patents so insidious is that they will interbreed with wild relatives (canola/rapeweed, cultivated cotton with the wild cotton you see by the roadside in cotton country etc) and neighbouring crops. This is a truly viral licence, as without your knowledge or consent you could easily find that your crops acquire patented genes.
IANAL, but I'd argue that plant patents could be used to litigate other seed suppliers out of existence - puff some pollen over their crop fields, and in a couple of generations there may well be enough of your IP in enough of their seeds for a patent suit to stick. In the past, if you didn't want to get sued, you didn't use someone elses IP - and they couldn't make you. These days, it may well be possible for someone else to introduce their IP into your product without your knowledge or consent, and you're liable for the infringement. If you could prove you'd been set up you might be able to make a case against the IP owners, but you can bet lawyers and corporations are a lot smarter in this post-Tobacco and post-Asbestos era and that no evidence will be left.
I don't agree with the concept of legally preventing people saving a portion of their crop as seed stock; that's fundamentally wrong, in my opinion. I also think that allowing the patenting of aspects of plants is legislative negligence, because I can't think of a single example of another patent which has the danger of polluting the IP of others (whether private or public domain) with its own IP without knowledge or consent.
I can see why particular companies would want plant patents. Monsanto's patents on glyphosate will have expired by now, meaning that anyone can produce a Roundup-workalike legally. Producing plants which are glyphosate-resistant and covered by patents helps them do two things. It gets them an income peripherally associated with an old herbicide with very strong brand recognition, and it gets genes associated with resistance to that herbicide out into wild relatives - this is important, because it means that by the time the plant patent expires, glyphosate will be commercially useless for both themselves and their competitors and there will be a marketing opportunity for the "Next Big Herbicide" and its matching resistant crops. Paranoid? Me? Maybe, but I don't think so. They have to know those things will crossbreed and go feral. If they get the opportunity to litigate a few other seed suppliers out of business along the way too, so much the better. You think Microsoft looks like a litigious, anticompetitive bullyboy now? They're going to look pretty tame in comparison with companies like Monsanto, unless people start waking up to the dangers associated with our current patent system and take action to correct it.
I have no problem with people protecting their research and effort, provided that they can do so without forcing others to use that IP without their consent. By effectively releasing those plant genes into the wild, it's only a matter of time before "infringing copies" start appearing in other wild and commercial plants. Patents were meant to stop others using your ideas without your consent - they were never meant to allow you to sneak your ideas into the work of others and then demand compensation.
I am pro technology and pro advancement, and all tech has a potentional dark side to it that I believe that we can all ultimately deal with. GMO's scare me though. What happens to our environment when things like "Terminator" from Monsanto get out and the gene's transfer to other species.
When I am trying to explain my view to others on this issue, I liken this genetic modification to software engineering. No matter how careful and methodical you are in a software project - there will be bugs, they are discovered and quashed later. Now think of the potential consequences of a 'bug' when dealing with GMO's - we could have serious agricultural decimation.
Furthermore I don't trust these companies, they repeatedly try to rush products to market, fudge their testing and say "we didn't know" later on when the problems arise, or simply pay the settlement (it's cheaper than good science).
I don't believe that these companies necessarily have the foresight, integrity or regard to be playing with these products. It's still a new frontier of science and what will happen when someone forgets that extra set of braces in the code....
I hope that I feel different in the future, I don't believe that any technology is inherently bad, there are some though we might not be ready to deploy as of yet.