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The Supreme Court To Rule On Monsanto Seed Patents
Fluffeh writes "Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? This week, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the question. The Court is pondering an appeals court decision saying that such planting can, in fact, infringe patents. Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled, as it had on several previous occasions, that patent exhaustion did not cover second-generation seeds. The Supreme Court has now asked the Solicitor General, the official in charge of representing the Obama administration before the Court, to weigh in on the case."
In a world where 94 percent of soybeans in circulation are descended from Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds, it might be hard for farmers who didn't want Monsanto's seeds even to buy seeds that were not patent encumbered.
Doesn't that render it close enough to a monopoly for the government to be able to step in and regulate it?
Natural evolution, bigger is usually better, but the bigger the spider, the more likely you are to see and squish it. Sometimes you get too big and it's all over for you.
And if 94% doesn't cut it, let's just pollute that last 6% for them.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
SCOTUS has taken the unusual step of asking the administration to provide them with an interpretation. This does not necessarily mean SCOTUS will hear the case; they can still reject the petition.
To be more precise, this move indicates that the court has a strong interest in the case. It's still possible that they'll let the circuit decisions stand, if they basically agree with everything they can get their hands on.
That said, I really hope they hear it, and separate patents from seeds. Fuck you for this case, Monsanto.
I am not entirely certain if we are arguing against or past each other, but I will respond. This case is about if Monsanto seeds are eligible for patent exhaustion due to self-replication, not if they should be able to get away with patenting these things in the first place, nor if they can force anyone who accidentally grows them to pay royalties. The court is in a tricky situation concerning self-replicating patentable objects. I can see why they ruled the way they did (expressed in my example above). Given the recent ruling in Prometheus, I could see the Supreme court invalidating Monsanto's patents and would have no problem with that. That is not what this case is about though.
If Monsanto has issues with this, then they need to genetically modify the seed (or plant that it gives birth to) so that it will only produce one generation.
ever heard of Terminator seeds?
I'm sure there's some governing body for Native Americans - they should patent corn and sue Monsanto for all they're worth. It took them thousands of years to "invent" corn and Monsanto replicates and resells this invention without paying any compensation to the inventors.
In all seriousness, corn is probably the most impressively modified plant next to bananas. In its original form it was pretty much just a grain (corn, in fact, is a generic term for grain that's been part of the English language before any English speaker laid eyes on maize).
If any invention is going on here, it's the process by which the seeds are made. A process that's not too disimilar from the way the Native Americans made corn or how Mendal manipulated peas and flowers and whatnot. But what Monsanto is doing is closer to what Mendel did than the Natives. At least with maize its almost wholly different from the original plant. It's like the difference between a great dane and a chihuahua. I live in a rural area and I'm surrounded by things grown from Monsanto seeds. I recognize them as plants that have existed far before Monsanto. They would have to at least start producing something that struck me as a 'new' plant for me to even consider the possibility that it could be patentable, but then I'd still be wary since, as you said, no one builds seeds from scratch.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Monsanto is so vigorous about defending its Roundup Ready seed patents because they are in a panic about what's happening in plant biology. Here's why.
Once you reach a point that farm weeds are starting to show resistance to Roundup, the game's up for Roundup. Most crops are grown in areas where 95% of the land is under cultivation. So you have virtually all Monsanto's seed sown in large areas that are pretty uniform breeding grounds for weeds. For years, Roundup Ready was a big advantage, because there were just a few kinds of weeds that could survive Roundup spraying. But now we've reached a point where 94% of the farmland is under cultivation with Roundup Ready and it's getting sprayed every year at the weeds' peak vulnerability times with Roundup, putting massive selection pressure on the weeds.
Once you reach a level where 1% of the weeds are resistant, and 94% of them get sprayed with something like 90% mortality, you get a next generation of weed seeds that's about 5% resistant. They year after that it's about 20% resistant. At this point farmers still see some value in Roundup. It still gives them an 80% reduction in weeds. But next year it's about 57% resistant. Now the farmer is frustrated. He sprays and sprays again and curses Monsanto. His crops are OK, but he's not doing as well as the guy down the road who doesn't spray at all but uses other methods for weed reduction.
But Roundup has been his method for 15 years and he's reluctant to try something new.
The next year, 87% of the weeds are resistant to Roundup. He sprays and only a handful of weeds die. He knows he sprayed at the right time. His neighbors are all bemoaning the same problem. "It ain't the Roundup. It's the weeds," one buddy says. "I got some on my grass and it was dead as fuckall the next morning. The weeds have adapted."
Roundup sales plummet mid-year. The company rep calls the feed store. "Farmers ain't buying it no more.," the manager tells him. "They say it don't work no more." It makes headlines across the country.
The next year, Roundup sales are zero, and there's no market for Roundup Ready seeds. Farmers are looking for other seeds that give the best yield on their soil type and moisture level.
The only way Monsanto keeps a money stream on the Roundup product is selling it to city dwellers to kill dandelions and crabgrass. But by now it's adapting in the city as well.
So they either introduce a new plant killer and have a giant campaign to get farmers on board -- farmers who feel screwed by paying for two years of overpriced seeds and worthless chemicals -- or they get out of the seed business.
Unless they can enforce a patent right on every seed that has their gene in it no matter how many generations removed from their production. Because you can no longer find a pure source of seed uncontaminated by their gene. Too many farmers have grown it and it has cross-pollinated into everybody's crop.
And it all sounds richly deserved, but then you realize that the same thing is happening with bacteria that attack our bodies. Only slower, because the breeding ground for those germs isn't under as heavy a pressure.
What you are seeing there is the election promises of 2008 and the people's aspirations of actually fostering positive change. Ask anyone today if they feel the same as when that video was made and I think you'd hear a resounding "no". It wasn't the personality that was the cult, it was the idea/dream of finally having someone who might actually try to change things for the better. Most if not all of the people are probably quite disillusioned with the campaign Obama at this point, and have come to the realization that the Obama in office wasn't strong enough to make the change. I honestly believe in the beginning he was trying very hard to be bi-partisan, but he's just been worn down so much at this point that he's just part of the petulant system of two party politics.