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Monsanto Plant Patent Case Winds On
Posted by
michael
on Sat May 17, 2003 06:43 PM
from the blowing-in-the-wind dept.
from the blowing-in-the-wind dept.
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."
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Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Informative)
Instead, it seems if some disgruntled seed saleman is pissed that you didn't want to buy their patented seed, he can just plant some on your property, and sue you for the cost after the fact. Now that's insane.
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, if the court rules for the farmer, what's to stop farmers from stealing small amounts of seed from a neighbor who bought the patented crop and growing it for enough years to have a full crop and then claiming that a bird pooped the seeds on their field. This would effectively destroy IP rights of all seed companies.
Honestly, I don't know what the correct decision here would be. Either result could have disasterous implications.
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Insightful)
OMG!!! You don't know what the correct decision is?????
Let's see, choose between:
Noone being allowed to grow a garden
VS
The profits of a company
Holy shit - you must be an American. Only a born and raised money bleeding capitalist would think that is a hard decision. Geez.
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are the risks you take when you try to patent life.
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as Palladium, patents, and digital restrictions managenent do not bode well computer and software users, these types of genetic patents are no less negative. I personally have nothing against GMO food and technologies, but I think we should seriously consider the impacts of patenting and controlling such technologies.
I hope the courts rule in favor of the farmer. Until about 5-10 years ago in Canada, there were no IP rights for seed companies. Such rights are contrived and artificial, I believe.
Michael
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, only if the court decides in Monsanto's favor will it be a disaster. This isn't some inanimate matter patented, but life. And life will find a way to spread. Once released, if it doesn't die out, it will spread. Look at various insects (killer bees, fire ants, mosquitos).
Parent
What's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:3, Informative)
My understanding of Monsanto seed is that they insert a "terminator gene" which makes any seed sterile. Hence, you cannot grow it for enough years to have a full crop. Yo
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:3, Insightful)
If the patent the property of seeds to resist pesticides then it creates a problem when other farmers use some amounts of pesticeds for years and eventually can get seeds more and more resistent to pesticeds. That could be another seeds, different then Monsanto's, just with the same property. And that eventually can come by itself - plants can mutate in time. Too bad, the patents should not cover properties. It's like patenting a physical law.
If they patent exact DNA then
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Informative)
It's not quite that straight... Schmeisers story [tv.cbc.ca] (the court documents give both sides pretty completely) is that he was spraying weeds with Roundup(tm) when he noticed that some of the canola in the area (which would have normally been killed by the herbicide) had survived --Finding that to be a bit weird, he sprayed a larger area and found a large patch that seemed to be roundup-resistant.. This appeared to be pretty much the area closest to the road.
The next summer, the seeds from the quarter section that he had sprayed were used to plant at least one of his quarter sections. This is the crop that Monsanto now claims to own. Part of the problem, however, is that the genetically modified seed has also contaminated the rest of his seed. If Monsanto wins a permanent injunction against Schmeiser ever using their seeds again, he'll not only have to turn over the seeds and profits from the mostly-monsanto patch... He'll also have to turn over any seeds with any monsanto contamination -- effectively, this will mean that he will have to destroy a couple of generations worth of breeding experiments because almost all of his stock now has at least a bit of monsanto seed in it.
Monsanto's claim was originally that he arranged (barter or sale) to have a monsanto-licensed farmer give him some of their roundup-ready seed (in violation of contract). Schmeiser claimed that it had appeared on his land, and he had the right to do what he wanted to with his crop. The (lower) courts decided that it didn't matter how the seed had landed on his land.. Monsanto had a patent on the seed, and nobody not licensed by them was allowed to use seeds with those genetics.
This decision could be especially problematic for some farmers because Canola is pretty much a weed. All sorts of farmers anywhere downwind from someone using Monsanto canola is likely to have at least a small proportion of genetically contaminated seed -- they could then have Monsanto going after them, as well.
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Interesting)
Think this a little further. Think of a second company selling genetically altered canola seed to a farmer, and again some of the seed falls over to a neighbour. But this time this farmer isn't using his own seed but Monsanto's. Then you have a farmer with Monsanto seed contamined by another seed. Which decision should the court make now? Handing over the contamined seed to Monsanto (because it violates Monsanto's patents)? Or handing it over to the other company (because it violates their patents)? Or part it half-by-half and giving 50% to each company? Shall both companies now start to sue each other for violating patents?
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:5, Interesting)
So, am I supposed to now make sure your IP doesn't find itself into my materials? How? Am I supposed to test the genetic sequences of ALL the plants that I have? This isn't a case where I'm going out and collecting YOUR IP in order to grow new plants - this is a case where your IP is contaminating my plants as a normal course of operation.
For example, this would be like a company which writes a computer program, that during the normal course of operations, spawns a virus that infects other programs on your hard drive. One of the programs that it infects is your compiler. Can this company now sue to get revenues for the programs you write and distribute that are compiled with this infected compiler? After all, this infected compiler now incorporates their IP...
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, this would be like a company which writes a computer program, that during the normal course of operations, spawns a virus that infects other programs on your hard drive. One of the programs that it infects is your compiler. Can this company now sue to get revenues for the programs you write and distribute that are compiled with this infected compiler? After all, this infected compiler now incorporates their IP...
Except for the virus part, that's pretty much what the GPL does for you, if you use a GPL'd compiler with GPL libraries (such that your code won't work without those libraries) then you must GPL your code. [slashdot.org] (question 2)
BB
Parent
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:3, Informative)
>saleman is pissed that you didn't want to buy
>their patented seed, he can just plant some on
>your property, and sue you for the cost after >the fact. Now that's insane.
It would be if the case you describe were judged to constitute patent infringement, but the Federal Court of Appeal has already ruled in this case that involuntary contamination does not constitute patent infringement. There is only patent infringement if the seeds were put there b
Not exactly (Score:3, Informative)
I owe my life to Monsanto (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Guinea Pig (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Guinea Pig (Score:3, Funny)
"Slashdot sued for publishing copyrighted lyrics on its web site"
Witch dunking (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting how they test for the plant - spray the crop and if it dies you're innocent.
And patents help who? (Score:3, Interesting)
Go Europe! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Go Europe! (Score:4, Informative)
EU does not have so clean hands after all. The European Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions [eu.int] is rather horrible and the majority of member states have actually refused to transpose [plooij.nl] it. Unfortunately the new member states from Central/Eastern Europe won't have the same luxury because they have to accept everything without furher conditions (with certain very limited exceptions). It's not going to be a good time to be a farmer in Poland or Hungary, I believe..
V.
Parent
Re:Go Europe! (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically, it works, practically speaking, why someone ever thought spraying chemical poisons
Another, perhaps even more worrysome case.. (Score:5, Informative)
This is not the only case going on right now - check this one out:
[knoxnews.com]
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.
Re:Another, perhaps even more worrysome case.. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
intentional or accidental? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The problem with a plant patent (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Monsanto = Scumbags (Score:4, Informative)
"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."
Re:Monsanto = Scumbags (Score:3, Insightful)
"While Dan Rather attempts to rationalize the network's heartless decision to air this despicable 'terrorist propaganda video,' it is beyond our comprehension that any mother, wife, father or sister should have to relive this horrific tragedy and watch their loved one being repeatedly terrorized," the family said.
"Terrorists have made this video confident that the American media would broadcast it and th
Potato: Patent Pending? (Score:3, Informative)
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
CBC links (Score:5, Informative)
technology good, patents bad . (Score:3, Insightful)
Monsanto and their ilk are a plague (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [google.com].
These assholes seriously piss me off. Profits are one thing, but profits before people isn't just immoral and unethical, it's disgusting.
LOL, good joke (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ma
What I'm Gonna Do... (Score:3, Funny)
The other side of the story? (Score:3, Interesting)
A new way to make money... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Monsanto Is To Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
On Monsanto: (Score:5, Informative)
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.
The bottom line is this... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:The bottom line is this... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why they'd have to. Percy Schmeiser has already testified in court that the glyphosate resistant canola seeds growing in his fields in 1998 were 1) planted there by an employee of his; 2) were taken from plants growing in his fields in 1997 which he had identified as being glyphosate resistant. The court took his account of the facts as being the canonical one. They ruled that even with the facts as he stated them, his compan
Re:The bottom line is this... (Score:3, Interesting)
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."
So in his testimony he admits that Monsanto contaminated his field. And this is their defense, that he stole the seed that they grew on his field without his permission?! Weak, very weak.
Monsanto should loose. (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:good job, people (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:This is what you get when you support Capitalis (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Why isn't this a slam dunk case? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [fct-cf.gc.ca] 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.
Parent
Re:Who's Monsanto? Who is telling the truth? (Score:3, Informative)
"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 rul