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PubPat Kills Four Key Monsanto Patents
IP Ergo Sum writes "PubPat's request for reexamination resulted in the rejection of four key Monsanto patents. According to PubPat, those particular patents were being used to 'harass, intimidate, sue — and in many cases bankrupt — American farmers.'"
It's about time - but attacking the patents one by one is not a real long term solution, changes to legislation is the only thing that can fix the problem of frivolous patents.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Monopolies are at best bad for the market, and at worst bad for Humanity. In this case, Monsanto's monopolizing has caused a lot of grief for many traditional farmers who save the previous year's crop seeds. This kind of thing really makes me sick.
Yea, it's one step forward after the 2,401,323 steps we've taken back in the last few years!
I hate printers.
Rejections can be overcome by amending the claims. Also, rejections can be appealed multiple levels, delaying this for several more years.
Patenting / copyright / other methods to articifially control something being copied are STUPID when applied to an entity who's sole purpose is to make copies of itself.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
70% of the Indian population is dependant on agriculture for their livelihood - it was closer to 80% a few decades ago. Monsanto has tied up with Indian companies, and it's business practices have driven several hundreds of farmers to debts and suicide. BT (Biologically Treated) cotton from Mahyco (if I remember right) has caused havoc in farmers' lives in several Indian states.
Monsanto specialises in technologies that make farmers dependant on these firms every year for seeds and patented techniques. Not only should such patents be outlawed; it should be made a crime to work against nature and create genetic modifications that prevent seeds from germinating.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I've read reports of farmers being sued by Monsanto because their crops get contaminated by GM strains via wind, animals, or farm equipment. Could the farmers sue Monsanto for polluting their crops' gene pool?
You're obviously not up-to-speed with Monsanto. What happens is that a neighboring field cross-pollinates, or some seeds blow off of a passing truck, and all of a sudden, your "grandfather's strain" has been contaminated with the patented Monsanto genes. Somehow, they test your field and they sue you. You can't argue with the DNA, so you are SOL and they shut you down, even though you never wanted their genes to start with.
Nope, you sue the bastards for contaminating your crop. Trying to destroy what your family has been trying to breed to perfection for many years. The DNA does not lie. You can see who is behind the attacks.
I think you as the farmer growing normal crops could sue (IANL) for cross pollination but from what I can gather genetically modified plants should not cross pollinate. I do think that the "law" would require the farmer to prove he was innocent since it very easy for the producer of the genetic strain to prove that the farmer has their strain.
a nto-pig-patent-111.
On a side note, From what I can gather the patent on GM grain is from 1994 (I thought it went further back than that) so there is still 7 years to go, however there are many groups and even nations opposing GM grains and other GM products. Monsanto really comes across as a company that does not care about anything except being a monopoly that controls all the world's food supply. It has even gone so far as patenting pigs http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/mons
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Everything about genetically modifying plants so they cannot reproduce, patenting the genes used to do this, then suing farmers that accidentally have those plants growing in their fields is simply monstrous.
There is no surer sign that humanity's future is grim than corporations owning the rights to plants that humans grow for subsistence.
They own the water, they own the mineral wealth, they own the forests, they own the food, they own everything there is to own.
Truly, truly monstrous. That's the only word I can think to use to describe the situation.
You're probably both right: The EU treats unwanted GM-cross pollination as bio-terrorist rape, while the US considers anything that might reduce the profit of a paying supporter as an attempt to overthrow the best government money can buy.
That's just silly. There are lots of different kinds of seeds and lots of different kinds of crops. The patents in this case would all expire by 2011 even if they are eventually found valid.
Why do I feel the need to feed the trolls?
Because there's a chance that you're making a sincere argument? Yeah, probably...
If Monsanto's GM patented genes were "containable" then I would say there's good argument for your side of this. But the problem lies and always has lied in it being uncontainable. Accidents of all sorts have happened and worse. One of Monsanto's tests is to kill a section of a farmer's field. If it doesn't die, then it contains their GM patented genes. (If the witch floats...) There is pollination as a problem... the GM patented gene plants give even if they don't receive. And seeds ALSO have a way of blowing in the wind in the cases where the seed IS the product like wheat.
But ultimately, there are far too many innocent people being harmed by this one corporation. This one corporation, by itself, has managed to harm humanity in ways that are simply unprecedented. If you truly believe that the value of money is of higher importance than that of the future of humanity, you need to rethink your position on this since the odds are good that you are also human.
Just as patents on medicines are used to deprive people unable to pay for it from life, these patents on food are used to deprive people unable to defend themselves growing their own crops.
There's an entire planet out here that doesn't care about "the value of a stock" and the systems of nature do no ask permission from lawyers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You are welcome on my lawn.
but only if you consume 50 times your body weight over a course of 2 weeks...
At first glance (I didnt read the article), I'd be saying the patents in question were american awarded ones, yes? If so, then it would be a bit hard to use said patents to hurt non-americans. In the same way if Monsanto had patents (maybe they do!) in, let say, australia, it would be correct to say they would be used to hurt and bankrupt australian farmers, no?
Having looked through some of the responses I can see that this debate has become one about GM as much as one about abuse of frivolous patents.
GM first - the main problem I see with GM crops is not so much that "it is unnatural" and therefore harmful. Philosophically speaking, nothing we do is unnatural - it all follows the laws of nature, even if it isn't always good for us. That's an aside, though - the real problem is more one of genetic pollution. Never mind they say that it doesn't happen "very often", whatever that means; the basic idea with the gene modifications we see from the likes of Monsanto is to create a plant that has some sort of advantage, in a very narrow sense, over unmodified plants - once the modified gene escapes into the wild, which it will unless the modified plants are unable to reproduce sexually (and what is the point of corn that doesn't produce seeds?) - once the genes escape, we don't know what will happen. Perhaps the genes that were a moderate afvantage for a crop plant turns out to be a huge advantage for a wild species, and suddenly we have a big problem on our hands; we simply don't know, and we have no way of reliably assessing the risk. This however, is the least of the problems.
The real problem, as Monsanto shows us, is that these patents it will be used as a weapon by multinational corporations; it gives them power far beyond what is reasonable, and on a very dubious foundation. The likely truth is that no matter which genes any company "invents", they already exist somewhere in nature; in light of this I think the law should be changed, at least for genes - either it should rest on the company to prove that their invention is a real invention, or it should simply be impossible to patent genes.
Absolute certainty is not the standard, fortunately. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard in criminal cases, in civil cases the standard is even lower. Sure, enough seeds may have blown off a passing truck to seed 95% of his 50 acre farm with their crop, or perhaps pollen from a Monsato field pollinated 95% of his crop last year (despite the nearness of his own heirloom pollen 8" away). Except the fact that likely last year he planted Monsato crops and against his contract retained seed for this year (where the heck else did he get enough seed for planting his entire field?)
I agree that the guy in all probability bred seeds from plants that surived in non-cultivated areas where he sprayed and he did this with full knowledge of what he was doing. However it seems to me that the judgement side-stepped intention as irrelevant. The way I read it (ok skim it) is that the undisputed fact the patented gene was found in the plants was enough to demonstrate infringement because he had "used" the gene. /IANAL
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"...while the US considers anything that might reduce the profit of a paying supporter as an attempt to overthrow the best government money can buy."
Bingo!
"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field." ~Albert Einstein
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where they is no river." ~Nikita Khrushchev
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." ~P.J. O'Rourke
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
>We evolved in the same biosphere as insects, so changes to a plant to prevent the insect from being able to eat them may also have effects on us
;) I've known a lot of scientists who've spent years and years developing crops with no commercial incentive (either crops that aren't grown in the industrialized world, or adding traits that are only of value to subsistance/small scale farmers). You can talk all you'd like about how starvation is a policy problem, but it's people who paint all genetic engineering with too broad a brush who're holding up the approval of crops like golden rice (4,000 children die of vitamin-A deficency every day) and virus resistant cassava. Its very easy to say there's no need for GMOs when you live in a country where most nutrition problems are caused by too much food rather than too little.
Great, sounds logical. Until you learn that the CRY proteins expressed by bt crops crystalize into their toxic form only under highly basic conditions. Because we took different evolutionary paths for millions of years, our stomachs are highly acidic while insects stomachs are highly basic. On top of that you've been eating the CRY proteins on organic food for decades, as spraying with bacteria producing those proteins has long been considered an organic form on pest control.
"GMOs are designed for one reason, to make money."
Monsanto's GMOs are designed for one reason, to make money. Fixed that for you.
That is an interesting take on it. In short, patents should be time specific to their domain. So, by this reasoning, software patents (if allowed at all) should have a maximum lifetime of about 2 years. That makes patenting software almost irrelevant, as the patenting time and costs exceed the value of the patent, since in 2 years the software has historically been obsoleted by the next version or 3.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
US Patents only apply in the US, in other words, to AMERICANS. These US Patents have nothing to do with non-Americans, except perhaps very few immigrants, if you want to get pedantic.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'll try to make this as simple as possible:
Healthcare shouldn't be an "industry." It is and should always be a service. It's not a product and it shouldn't be a product. Health shouldn't be treated as a commodity to be bought or sold and certainly not the exclusive domain of the wealthy or the privileged. Technology and development of technology ultimately belongs to all of humanity. It is a "favor" that any given governmental body rewards those who develop things that benefit the world a temporary monopoly, but it is exactly when that monopoly is abused or used as a weapon to stifle other business, the rights of individuals, or otherwise adversely affect the world or mankind, then that monopolist should be stopped in some way.
Business that serves people in delivering things that people need for survival such as healthcare and food should be held outside of normal business in that their practices do not follow the normal supply and demand market paradigm. The demand doesn't vary based on supply or pricing. There will always be a need for healthy foods. There will always be a need for quality healthcare. And to allow profit-seeking business to adversely affect peoples lives so that they can "protect their property" (which is ultimately given to them "by the people") is not just an immoral act, but an act against the interests of humanity.
As the food industry goes, (the original topic here?) should Monsanto and companies like them be allowed to freely pursue their aims, it would remove healthy organic foods from the market place replaced by "patented foods" which can only be grown and produced with their permission and sold by their rules. All the while, they are completely escaping the collateral harm they are causing. There are links being made, for example, between GM foods and the decline in the bee population. (Bees are an indispensable and irreplaceable part of farming and the world's ecosystems such that the extinction of bees would mean the extinction of man quite literally.) There have been many other problems identified with the use of "disease resistant" and other durable forms of GM foods as well, many of which lead directly to health problems. But as choice for healthy food diminishes, (and the cost for healthy food goes higher) the quality of life diminishes as well... they are presently not being held accountable.
"fortunately, the bootleggers take care of that"? Are you kidding me? Profiteering and illegal acts are a "fortunate" byproduct of an already humanity-abusive system?! Are you thinking your own thoughts to conclusion?
I have failed in being brief, but only because I see this as a critical issue.
WHO is going to sue the biggest agro conglomerate on the planet?
WHO is going to shell out a minimum $5000 retainer to some lawyer just to get a consult?
WHO is going to continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at increments of $300 until the case is adjudicated in some lower court?
WHO is going to continue to spend even more money if the first round doesn't go to the "little guy"?
The family farmer is much like the garage inventor.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It's ridiculous to patent the components of something that self-reproduces.
Let Monsanto sit on it until they come up with a fool-proof way of keeping their seeds limited to those who buy them.
I want millions, and I've written software that I'm sure would help Monsanto. Should I patent it then slip it into their company networks via a worm and sue them? Seems like a winning strategy.
After all, if they hadn't wanted my patented software their IT department should have inspected every network packet, by hand if necessary...
People who advocate patent/copyright extension are the biggest leeches/thieves in society today. Some thing may be hard to research without a known market (drugs, that the government regulates heavily) but for every semi-valid patent there are a thousand absolute liars patents XOR and cat entertainment via laser pointers.
I'm glad someone brought that up. When the patent expired, the efficiency of the steam engine shot up (see parent's link). And without patents, people still innovate because they need to make a buck. They just find other ways to get more value out of their invention. One way is old fashioned "trade secrets". As your product hits the market, the secret will eventually be reverse engineered but you have time to make your cash. More importantly, you have the time to produce something better than the other guys who have to play catch-up.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I'm surprised a Trekker with mod points hasn't modded you 'Troll' yet. He never actually said those words!
Is this a rhetorical question?