Monsanto Plant Patent Case Winds On 268
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."
the problem? (Score:1, Interesting)
good job, people (Score:1, Interesting)
I hope Monsanto loses this case badly, even if the farmer himself is a dick for growing the sh*t purposefully.
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:2, Interesting)
But seriously folks, better read the "pissed off seed company's" side of the story before getting up on the soap box.
I bet that farmer couldn't wait to get his eager little sweaty palms on that "Round-up Ready" canola strain. It sounds soooo tasty.
Eat less GMO :-)
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)
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.
The other side of the story? (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
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?
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...
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:1, Interesting)
its the same with IP protection of GM food. If these foods actually do improve crop yields and feed more people for less effort - then the companies that develop biotech need to get a fair reyrn for the expensive R&D they provide (or other companies won't bother to do futher work)
you slashdotters seem to think science is still being done in garages - well its not, these days it costs billions to produce something radically advanced like a GM food, blockbuster movie, or
sorry for the rant there
love, peace, hope, dock
miguel
Re:Finally~! (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to live in the same area of Saskatchewan as this man, and let me tell you this, there aren't too many people that actually know the guy who are feeling *any* sympathy for him. He's a snake-oil salesman and a get-rich-quick bum. All his life he's done nothing at all productive, and now suddenly he's put on the "poor, overworked, underpaid, threatened-by-the-man farmer" act? Pfft. May he get what's coming to him.
I also realize there is a good chance this will secure me some bad karma, but I'm honestly not trolling
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, 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.
Re:The bottom line is this... (Score:2, Interesting)
"stole"? But he was not charged with theft. He was sued for patent infringement. I am puzzled why people feel the fact that he took the seed from contaminating plants he found on his property makes it any less of an example of patent infringement. There is no exemption allowing one to infringe patents provided one uses one's own property to do so. This is the case with all patents. It is not something special to this case. Why is there this belief that he shouldn't be found in infringement of the patent unless he somehow illicitly obtained the seeds? It's not like there's a corresponding requirement in any other patent case.
The underlying reasoning seems to be that "you can do anything you like with your own property". Except of course, that you can't. Canada has a wide variety of laws prohibiting things you can do with your own property. There are many examples. Here are some:
*I may own pieces of metal and metalworking tools, but I may not fashion the pieces of metal into submachine guns.
*I may own piperidine, cyclohexanone and phenylmagnesium bromide, but I am not allowed to mix them in such a way as to produce phencyclidine (aka PCP).
*I can not use my own property to reproduce a patented invention without a licence from the patent holder. (This is the one of particular concern in this case.)
*I may own blank CD's and a CD burner, but if I burn a certain pattern of bits onto these blank CD's and sell them, I can be found liable for copyright infringement.
Patents to Gene Therapy (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose your body has been subjected some years from now to patented gene therapy.
a) what kind of usage restrictions would companies dare to claim on their IP? Will it be possible that they'll ask you to remove the patented gene from your body if, for example, you stopped paying them monthly treatment fees?
More likely,
will they introduce combinations of "gene therapy+required antibiotics" similar to what happens with crop seeds [when you buy a GM crop because it is resistant to an, also patented, herbicide]. The implications would be that your survival could be at risk if you stop taking the supplemental medications that make it possible for you to live with the "therapeutic" gene. By raising the prices of the supplement a pharmacorp could "drive out of business" gene therapy patients who no longer could pay for the supplement or (more likely) loot the treasury if the patients are on Medicare. Would any representative dare to vote against dishing out funding for the supplement if this vote threatens lives of current patients?
b) What if the therapeutic genes find their way into your children (even if they weren't supposed to). Would your children have to pay fees to the pharmacorp? Would you have to pay a license fee to have children?
In case-based judicial systems current developments in GM patent cases will set the stage for what scale of wrongdoing will be allowed in the future when GM touches us even more personally.
Insanity. Just imagine... (Score:2, Interesting)
Mendel's descendents (OK, he was a monk, so relatives' descendents) will be sued retroactively for IP theft, every farmer with a spreadsheet will be put in Federal Prison for life in violation of the DMCA.
I voted for these guys when, exactly?
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:2, Interesting)
If I decide to patent toxic waste can I sue a farmer when it ends up on his field? It makes more sense to me to allow patents on higher organisms because they can't spread corporate IP rights as easily. If Harvard was given their patent on the mice, how would the courts react if they released them into the wild and started suing people for the content of their mousetraps?
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
Re:Obviously a frame-up (Score:3, Interesting)
He is not arguing that the plants growing in his fields in 1998 were a case of accidental contamination. He's claiming only that he originally got his hands on the seeds by taking advantage of some accidental contamination.
This misrepresents the situation. Yes, he knew there were patented genes in the crop, but he was doing what he had done every year for a couple of decades - taking seeds from one year's crop to plant the following year. He believed his own crops were superior to others in the district because he was essentially running his own breeding program.
He never sprayed Roundup on the canola once it was planted, which it the whole point of the Monsanto modifications. In fact he was an organic farmer - he didn't even want the genetically modified stuff there. Thus he gained no advantage from the presence of the Monsanto patented genes, so there is no question of him "taking advantage" of the situation.
The outcome is that he was not permitted to go about his business as he always had - once he knew there were Monsanto genes in his crop, he could never use seeds from that crop again.
Re:The bottom line is this... (Score:3, Interesting)
So you are saying there is no prescedent for this case. It is a special case, because it is about food, property rights, and genetic engineering/contamination. Then it is perfect that it goes to the Supreme Court so they can set it.