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Supreme Court To Decide If Monsanto GMO Patents Are Valid
tomhath writes with this exerpt from a Reuters story: "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an Indiana farmer's appeal that challenges the scope of Monsanto Co.'s patent rights on its Roundup Ready seeds. Mr. Bowman bought and planted 'commodity seeds' from a grain elevator. Those soybean seeds were a mix and included some that contained Monsanto's technology. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case over the objections of the Obama administration, which had urged the justices to leave the lower court rulings in place."
Wait for the food monopolies... oh wait, they're already here.
After all, the manufacture, distribution and use of Monsanto's GM product is presumably regulated by some governmental agency? I tend to think that FDA is involved, at least? Monsanto's seed got onto that farmer's land without his knowledge or consent, and the potential damages he could suffer as a result of Monsanto's technology being inadvertently deployed on his land are demonstrably quite large. The ultimate fault is Monsanto's, for failing to adequately control their genetically modified produce's growth and proliferation.
Maybe the Supreme Court will decide that patent rights do not apply to genetically modified organisms and that growing a plant is not a crime.
They contaminated his crops with their seed. They owe him compensation.
When GM labelling comes in in California, he will have to label his crop as GM contaminated, and that will reduce his profits. He did not seek that contamination, Monsanto were lax about cross contamination.
It may be true that he grew more as a result, but that does not mitigate the damage they did. How is he supposed to know that the seeds he buys and plants are contaminated with GM seeds? In effect they're burdening ever farmer with a requirement to detect their GM crop contamination, as necessary for the GM labeling requirements.
Monsanto polluted the seed pool, and others should not pay for their pollution.
Since God used the first crop of seeds to produce new plants, I think the whole patent issue boils down to this infrigement made by nature or God. Since Monsanto can't sure nature, they will have go for the big man himself.
I think Monsanto needs to sue God or in his absence his nearest representative, the Pope, for making illegal copies of their seed.
Original case here.
SCOTUSblog
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
If it's GM, I want it labeled as such. I want to know what I'm buying.
It seems earlier court decisions suggested that Monsanto had no rights after it made an initial sale. If this gets overturned then imagine the strengthening this might give to the First Sale Doctrine!
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I am not surprised that a reactionary, right-wing administration would stand behind Monsanto.
Luckily, the elections are behind the corner and things are about to ch.. oh, shit!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
It's fucking awesome dude! The only thing that would make it better is SPINNING SKULLS!
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
First of all, to get this out of the way-Monsanto is obviously quite amoral, and their business practices are largely indefensible. However, it's worth discussing the actual issues at hand here.
The legal issues are basically:
1. Is it infringement when contaminated seeds are planted unintentionally and they contain patented genetic engineering. I would say no, because my understanding is that the tort of infringement must be willful.(IANAL)
2.Does the right of first sale allow seeds to be reproduced to create more seeds for the use of the same former. A complex issue, I would guess probably not, legally.
The more commonly discussed issue though, is the ethics of GM food. I personally believe, very strongly, that genetically engineered food is good and desirable, since mankind has yet to grasp the whole 'birth control' concept, and likely never will. GM food also has a massive capacity for good, making food more nutritious and easier to grow.
Politically, I'm very far left, but I (unpopularly) believe that technology is often it's own solution. I'm as anti-Monsanto as everyone, but their business practices does not make their product evil, anymore than Microsoft's antitrust issues made the PC unethical. They are distinct issues.
http://www.alternet.org/food/how-mitt-romney-and-bain-helped-grow-monsanto-biotech-giant
Monsanto is clearly bully here, because in any scenario, farmer didn't violate the contract, so they just showing their power.
However, this is more like contract dispute. Seems like company understood that they chances of going after farmer contract is close to null, so they decided to punish him by betting on their golden egg. That neatly opened unforseen posibility to challange seed (and any DNA, nano, etc.) patents in SCOTUS. Farmer didn't care about patents, he just wants not to pay for stuff he didn't violate. As usual, side effect of the rulling will be so much interesting for rest of us.
As for Obama administration - I still treat him as best option (not a US citizen, yeah I know all his weakneses), however, I'm really getting tired of carde blanche to IPR industry from all goverments. No matter who is elected all I hear that IPR must be protected at any cost. Without any critical analysis or thinking. IPR industry doesn't even have a third of exports or economy. Still, I think we need to fight this political way - informing, educating those politicans who we can reach (no, not everyone is deeply corrupt).
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
The short version: Don't own his own seeds and once you buy Monsanto seeds they own your business ..
"A federal appeals court found that soybean farmer Vernon Bowman infringed on Monsanto patents when he planted second-generation soybeans that were the product of seeds he had purchased from Monsanto"
AccountKiller
In much the same way that infants who survive a premature birth “contain” Dr. Tarnier’s incubator technology.
IANAL, but in this case that doesn't matter.
Lots of people here will argue the merits one way or another, adding ever more subtle points to a cauldron of legal opinion that attempts to guess the outcome... ...and it doesn't matter one whit.
Regardless of the law, the lower court decision cannot be allowed to stand simply as a matter of practicality. If it does, Monsanto stands to control virtually all farmland in America and put all farmers out of business. Monsanto would find itself in the position of controlling all food prices and dictating whatever terms it likes in the manner of process and production.
The simplest solution is to rule that, absent any contractual obligations, the patent holder's rights are exhausted after first sale of self-reproducing physical objects. For anything beyond this, the rules of contract law would apply. Farmers would be bound by whatever contracts they enter into with Monsanto.
Monsanto's mistake was in freely allowing the sale of the harvested seed. A second-generation-seed purchaser is under no contractual obligation to Monsanto because they didn't enter into a contract. If Monsanto wants this to happen differently, then they need to word the original contract in such a way that this can't happen - so that the original purchaser can't sell seed for replanting, for instance.
Monsanto winning this would be really, *really* bad.
Patenting seeds which when growing inevitably distribute pollen uncontrolled to other fields demonstrates the limit of this patent system. Third party fields without a contract with Monsanto get involuntary contaminated. Ridiculous to grant a patent which inevitably messes up like this.
That does not mean, they should not be invalidated, and the practice banned.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
" Therefore he must have added the Roundup ones separately."
You added that interpretation, article doesn't say that, he specifically says they were part of the mix.
If Monsanto can't control their seeds then why should others pay to detect them? Every farmer would have to DNA test their crops to see if they're contaminated with patented material.
Obama is whored-out like all the other politicians.
I didn't RTFA, but I'm assuming that the summary is correct where it says the Obama administration was opposed to SCOTUS hearing the case. What reason did they give for the case not being heard?
Why is the Obama administration trying so hard to stop the Supreme Court from hearing this case?
Can someone fill me in, please?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Clarence Thomas used to work for Monsanto as an attorney in the 70s. I'm going to guess that a hypocrite won't really care about a little thing like conflict of interest.
It didn't stop him from ruling on the Affordable Care Act.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
GMO patents will be upheld.
The elite have a lot at stake and aren't going to let the supremes derail their gravy train.
This will be a lesson to all under the grindstone not to trifle with the will of their betters. Got nailed with a federal precedent? Should have kept your mouth shut and left well enough alone instead of stirring up an even bigger hornet's nest.
I'm jaded due to experience, but still hopeful that I'm wrong.
Because it isn't about sexualising Santa Clause (who isn't part of a religion either, so double fail there).
But since you SAW it as such, this must mean you see EVERYTHING as religious.
Ergo proving you are the religious nutjob.
A Roundup-ready plant is resistant to the herbicide Roundup. The stuff kills the weeds, but not the crop. Good concept. Part of the green revolution to feed the planet. But I don't like the unrestricted patents, which should have expired by now --- for a lot of crops, anyway. This stuff has been around for years.
I think it was stupid to allow patents for genomes anyway. The self replicating device was found in nature. All that was done was to modify it. There is no invention. You could patent the original modification process, of course, but when the seed replicates itself it is using a process that is clearly not invention, but is, as I said, a process found in nature. Hopefully the court will see this. The current patent situation runs counter to the law's intent and stands firmly against the public good. And anyone with the common sense god gave a parakeet can see it. Okay evolution gave the parakeet its sense, but let's not open that can of soybeans. Okay?
This whole idea of patents for self-replicating devices should be very interesting when we make robots that can build copies of themselves.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
And in this case, the defense is just that: there is no need to have a license.
Monsato is selling their GMO'd product (or allowing to be resold) as commodity. They refuse to allow segragation to happen so that you can buy seed stock and know it isn't GMO'd by Monsato's request.
And, since the use of the seeds are to grow these seeds and no contract was requested by the seller at time of sale, no license is needed, therefore no patent infringement.
With 2 former Monsanto litigators(Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan) currently on the supreme court we already know the outcome of this case. Kagan has shown a tendency to recuse herself from cases she see may deem some confict but I'm not counting on this one. I would love to eat crow on this one but Monsanto has their tentacles deep in washington. I blame the ignorance of politicians. They nominate these judges to the supreme court and in other positions of power (Michael Taylor) FDA and numerous others with ties to Monsanto in Federal and State Government. The revolving door is strong with this one.
I know what at least one of the justices will say:
When they get to Sam Alito, he'll point to Antonin Scalia and say, "Whatever he said."
You are welcome on my lawn.
Having been sued by Monsanto before, I certainly hope, but will not hold my breath, that the patents are ruled invalid.
My wife and I have 20 acres in rural country where we raise horses. They graze in our hayfields, which were contaminated by pollen from a nearby university where Monsanto does GMO research on insect-resistant hay and alfalfa.
We were sued by both the university and Monsanto, along with many of our neighbors, for "stealing their proprietary, top-secret technology."
Yeah, like we snuck into their fields in the middle of the night and stole pollen.
They're called bees.
Anyway, it cost us over $100K in legal fees, and were compelled to pay licensing fees. We decided to plow the hayfields under, but the court ruled we still had to pay annual licensing because the DNA was still in our soil.
Now we pay Monsanto $15K/year for the dirt on our property.
Thank God we have the First Amendment.
But the Demoncraps are in power, aren't they?
Well, so much for the First.
So if much of the commodity seed out there is now roundup-ready, farmers may have an increasingly difficult time buying non-modified seed. That means Monsanto would have poisoned the well of the competition: natural seeds. There are two monopolistic behaviors here: protecting your inventive production method and choking out competing production methods through non-market actions. Patents are only meant to support the former, not the latter. Fostering market competition between production methods (i.e. GMO vs. non-GMO seeds) is the implicit aim of patent law (by promoting the creation of new production methods to be market-tested). The fact that life-based patents have the capacity to cross-breed (literally crowd out) or, at the very least reproduce themselves (having a market-crowding-out effect) should give the courts serious pause in upholding them. Both of these are negative externalities born by consumers of the competing products. The practical implication for a win by Monsanto is that patenters making life-based modifications will seek to make those modifications cross-breedable and pervasive to the "competing" natural versions, since contaminating the natural version will amount to "expanding the user base."
Lets come up with a manufacturing analogy.
Scenarios
1.Lets say I buy some machine tools from XYZ corp. Things like lathes, vertical mills, shapers, whatever. I then use these manual, general purpose machines to make copies of the machines I bought. Am I infringing on patents? I think so.
2. Now assume I buy a mixed bag of robotic manufacturing equipment all of which is hardwired to only manufacture copies of themselves. Assume and / or agree that the cost of separating the patented robots from the non-patented robots would put an undue strain on my company and the whole lot was bought from a supply of "general use" robots. I plug them all in and start selling what is manufactured. Am I infringing? Not sure.
3. Take scenario 2 and extend it. Assume all of the patented robots are resistant to a high voltage spike and all the others melt into either nothing or conveniently collectable puddles. I intentionally electrocute my plant and then use the patented robots to first bring my number of robots back up to scratch and then sell the excess on the open market. Am I infringing? Yes.
Final Scenario
4. Assume it has already been determined that robots manufactured by patented robots are themselves not patented and that the only thing stopping people from using the robots to increase the size of their manufacturing base is a contract with the original manufacturer. Am I infringing? No. Have I broken a contract? No.
Part of the argument relies on the fact that by design the only thing the robot can do is manufacture copies of itself. Therefore the only reason for buying it is to either make copies or break the robot down and use the parts for something else. What can be done with the copies seems to be a bone of contention.
Should be interesting to watch. I suspect that whatever the outcome from SCOTUS is, the law of unintended consequences will bite a lot of people in a rather fundamental way ;-).
Monsanto knows their genetic patent is being spread by bees, and yet either nobody is correctly arguing this in court or nobody cares. If someone sued on that issue alone Monsanto's patents would be declared invalid long ago. All these farmers who have had bee by plantings of monsanto's seeds into their crops would be owed a lot of money.
The summary states: "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case over the objections of the Obama administration, which had urged the justices to leave the lower court rulings in place."
And yet, the linked article makes no claim like that, nor does the summary provide a link to that. So, please, where is the citation to support that claim?
I don't get the changing logos. WTF is going on with that?
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Wasn't Bush's support of Monsanto one of the myriad things progressives despised him for? What happened to all that "change we could believe in"? Guess this is another entry for Nothing Changed .
Liberty in your lifetime
By Monsanto's logic, if some of my patented drink mix unintentionally found it's way into an aquifer, anyone who gets water from that aquifer owes me money if I demand it. Soon enough I'll own the water cycle!
Well, looking around the internets finds that the article and summary are in this case rather poor. Fortunately there are better sources, in this case a good Reuters article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/21/us-monsanto-lawsuit-idUSTRE78K79O20110921
In Bowman's case, he planted Roundup Ready seeds as his first-crop in each growing season from 1999-2007 and did not save seed in compliance with licensing agreements. But he also purchased commodity seed from a local grain elevator for a late-season planting, or what is known as a "second-crop."
The farmer applied glyphosate to his second soybean crops and was able to identify herbicide-resistant plants, from which he then saved seed for subsequent years of second-crop planting, according to the court documents.
So this is really a case over both patent exhaustion and contract law. It's interesting that the seed selection step is the same process that got Percy Schmeiser in trouble.
A view of the future is from a friend who is an author. The USNA (absorbed Canada and Mexico) passes the Pure Foods Act making it illegal to grow food. There are a few background news articles in one novel where guerrilla gardeners have retaliated against licensed farms by destroying them.
This reminded me of an attempt by the IRS in the 1990s to tax a couple based on the resale value of the food they'd grown.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Its also worth noting that the Truthout.org claim that the Solicitor General "released a legal brief despite the fact that the US government was not a defendant in the case" is a bald-faced lie. The US government was the original defendant in the case at the trial level, which was a challenge that various government entities, particularly the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, had violated the federal law in the process of approving Round-Up Ready Alfalfa without an Environmental Impact Statement. Monsanto was not an original party to the case at trial level, but was an intervenor at trial after the decision and in the remedy phase. The U.S. briefs at the Supreme Court were not non-party amicus briefs, they were briefs "for federal respondents". Documents relating to the case are available at SCOTUSblog.
The FDA, as well as the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the EPA, all remain involved in the regulation of genetically modified food crops. In the case of the FDA, that's usually been through a voluntary pre-market consultation procedure so far because most of the things added through genetic engineering are either things that are generally recognized as safe in food or something for which the regulatory authority is expressly elsewhere, such as pesticides for which the EPA has regulatory authority over safe levels. The FDA retains the authority to require premarket clearance of specific additives (whether added through bioengineering or otherwise) and to take postmarket actions, as well.
The simplest solution is to rule that, absent any contractual obligations, the patent holder's rights are exhausted after first sale of self-reproducing physical objects. For anything beyond this, the rules of contract law would apply.
The very doctrine of first sale is itself now under fire and at risk in another upcoming SCOTUS case.
So the first point can't be used to trash the study unless you trash the study showing it was safe too.
The second one has no bearing at all.
The third is again just as liable to debunk the original study. If this study is wrong because of it, then the original study is too.
The fourth is incorrect in that the rats were worse off with the GMO product than without, worse with the GMO product and Roundup than with just GMO alone and worse off with just Roundup but not as bad as they were with the GMO (but not to a clear distinction). And again has no bearing. The issue is that it appears the modification of the product makes the product cancer causing. I.e. it is that which is unsafe. We already knew that Roundup was cancer causing.
And the fifth one is irrelevant. They use rats that are prone to cancers to see the effects of the drug more clearly. And is the same strain as the original study used (for the same reasons).
First, according to the Reuters report, there is a claim that Monsanto had no rights to the seeds after the initial sale. This is going to dovetail in with the copyright case also before SCOTUS this session where a student bought cheap textbooks overseas and Wiley sued him for copyright infringement.
The other head-scratcher here is that the farmer bought the seed from a supplier that wasn't Monsanto. How he hell could he have known that there was Monsanto seed mixed in? Why isn't it the suppliers fault? But also, Monsanto has tried other tactics like suing farmers that were downwind of a farmer that used Monsanto seed saying they were illegally using their seed. Huh? I guess Monsanto doesn't understand natural processes. It's like the case of the city in Oregon that threw a property owner in jail because he had rainwater catch basins because the city supposedly owns all the water that falls on the land. If that's true and I seed the rain clouds upwind of that town, am I stealing their water?
If Monsanto's seeds are patented (and I think it would be a cruel injustice if they are), then somebody ought to sue the ass off of that company for purposely littering neighbor's croplands with patented seeds that cause economic damage to neighboring farmers.
This is a clear case of right and wrong and Monsanto is wrong.
A vote for Obama *or* Romney is a vote wasted.
There is a libertarian candidate on the ballot. As fucked up as some of his economic agenda may be I'm going to vote for him with the expectation congress will put a damper on his fiscal nonsense while he is busy reversing the never ending Obama administrations assault on our civil liberties.
I actually thought Obamas position on NDAA was a whacknut conspiracy theory until I tracked down footage from c-span where it was admitted Obama asked for the language while publicly stating he was against it.
Obama is a sell out and Romney is a string puppet who believes whatever will get him elected. Don't waste your vote on Obamney.
... like in how the GMO food is causing serious health issues and in the US there is a lack of proper labeling.
Maybe if the patents go away more farmers will adopt GMO so obamacare is justified? shrug...
In honor of the 15th anniversary of SlashDot they're experimenting with member-submitted logos.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Round-up kills 90% amphibians in any water, and research find it to threaten bee colonies as well. There are many other reasons to ban Monsanto than this research alone.
My greatest concern is Romney being elected and then something happening to him. Imagine the Ayn Rand-inspired presidency of Paul Ryan.
Monsanto should be liable whenever their patented genetics spread beyond their control. In particular, if pollen containing their patented genetics spreads to the crops of innocent farmers, they should be liable to society as a whole for their loss of control and heavily penalized and they should be liable to the affected farmer for the full cost of removing their patented genetics and all consequential costs and damages (e.g. lost income from lost crops).
That's disgusting. Monsanto should be paying you and all of us for their uncontrolled dissemination of GMOs.
The SUPREME COURT WHORES are also owned by the corporations, just like our Congress, just like our Senate and just like our "President" CORPORATE SELL OUTS! Monsanto WANTS The Supreme Court to hear this case because AFTER They do, MONSANTO will NEVER have to fight it again, there will be NO MORE lawsuits against them, ONCE THE SELL OUT, PROSTITUTE COURT JUSTICES rule in the favor of MONSANTO, after they rule in favor of CORRUPTION ONCE AGAIN, MONSANTO WILL BE ABLE TO POISON ALL OF US WITHOUT anything stopping them! Just like THEY ALLOWED THE BANKERS TO ROB US ALL BLIND, While our justice system AIDS and ABETS them in their crimes, instead of APPLYING ANY LAW the SUPREME COURT JUSTICES are deconstructing it. All these prostitutes are SELL OUT SCUMBAGS!