Monsanto Wins Case Over Patented Canola 599
c writes "The Supreme Court of Canada says that you're liable if a plant with a patented gene infects your property. If you recall, Schmeiser claims (and research supports) that Roundup Ready canola seeds infected his own crops. Monsanto prosecuted him for patent infringement." Some other links: Monsanto's press release, Globe and Mail story.
So, it spreads itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have thought that genetically modified crops would be unable to reproduce by some manipulation. I'm quite surprised to hear from the articles and research linked that this is not the case.
I imagine the purists who want full organic food may be surprised that thier food may be cross-polinated with a genetic crop.
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:4, Interesting)
Killing Roundup Ready Plants (Score:5, Interesting)
Well (Score:3, Interesting)
"Organic" crops (Score:5, Interesting)
Offspring licencing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Monsanto lobbies to repeal of laws of nature? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would guess that Schmeiser could sue the other farm that let the seeds blow onto his crops. The "pollution" of his fields caused him an economic damage. He cant use the seeds now because he is not licensed. In Texas,Kansas etc farmers get paid if an oil line spills onto their crop, I don't see how "seed pollution" should be any different.
Time To Go Organic (Score:1, Interesting)
This ruling is crazy and I hope it is overturned. Monsanto are evil for even taking this to court. It's like saying Iraqies are responsible for Americans going into Iraq. The person who sent them in is responsible in that case, and in this case the planting farmer should be responsible.
Even better, the tampering scum that create GM crops should be responsible for their abominations.
Rant over, so feel free to flame me to a crisp.
Patent infringement upheld, but damages eliminated (Score:5, Interesting)
I quote: Since there was no evidence that he sprayed Roundup herbicide to reduce the weeks [sic], the majority said, there is no way to conclude that he gained any financial advantage.
no, we're not surprised... (Score:5, Interesting)
We've been lobbying against this stuff for years, for that very reason, it infects our stuff, and then they claim ownership? Huh? Howzzat again?
Just wait. If you are just hearing about roundup ready and cross pollination and infection, wait to you hear about terminator genes and cross pollination. Ohh, that's a goody. Makes a plant live one year, then all it's offspring is infertile. Think on that one for a bit. Think about the winds, how they cross borders, let alone mere fields and counties. Give it a few years once they start using that sort of seed, you'll have one company "owning" the planets food supply, then their stuff will get borken and--not much food at all. It very easily could happen, you aren't stopping the wind.
Lotta groovy short term profits though, until that happens.
After that, can't say. Most likely world class famine at a minimum.
Re:Low flying plane (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:3, Interesting)
Really interesting read.
Re:Glad we're not the only ones! (Score:2, Interesting)
No wonder Monsanto sued. They're pi^h^h upset that he didn't buy the matching 55-gallon drums of Roundup. They couldn't have cared less if the guy used the patented seed -- they'd probably give it away for free if they could force the recipients to use their also-patented herbicide.
Careful - Monsanto might sue you for revealing their marketing plan without proper authority! But seriously, Gillette figured this out years ago - they money's in selling the razor blades, not the razors.
Re:Monsanto lobbies to repeal of laws of nature? (Score:1, Interesting)
The argument that GM is okay because "it's only the same thing as selective breeding" is nonsense. Know any scientists who can get mice to breed with jellyfish? Nope, me neither. Maybe those glow-in-the-dark mice are something new that wasn't possible before, then? Yup, I think everyone agrees on that.
Therefore GM technology is not merely a quicker form of selective breeding, it can make changes far more drastic than are possible with traditional genetic tinkering.
Therefore it is not inconceivable that GM tech could introduce changes which prove much more harmful to humans or the environment.
Therefore it is not "pure superstition" to ask why GM crops are being railroaded into mass production while scientists still don't agree on what the cross-pollenation risks really are.
Please point out any flaws in my logic.
This makes no sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose some "radical" activist takes a bunch of patent-encumbered seeds and drops them from an airplane on all the canola fields in Canada. Now, every farm owes massive royalties to Monsanto. There are three possible resolutions to this situation: 1) Monsanto doesn't try to collect (improbable); 2) Monsanto tries to collect and bankrupts every farm in Canada, ruining the entire industry; 3) Monsanto tries to collect, and Canada is forced to provide a subsidy to pay for the settlements, in order to preserve the canola industry.
In any case, the whole deal would be completely fucked. It appears that Canada has just massively shot itself in the foot.
So, anybody got an airplane I can borrow?
Re:Killing Roundup Ready Plants (Score:3, Interesting)
we had this crazy bamboo that a moron brought back from Brazil 50 years ago that was running amok in the ally, nothing killed it, gasoline, diesel fuel, plowing it under, finally, I bought 20 bags of rock salt and dumped them all over the area and plowed the salt into the soil.... I have not seen a single bamboo shoot for 3 years.
Re:Glad we're not the only ones! (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years of that and tada... Roundup resistant dandelions. It'd only cost $50 per year for 5-10 years. How much did Monsanto spend on research trying for the same effect?
Once you have the field of resistant weeds, harvest some of it and go visit Monsanto and offer to sell them your "high tech" dandelions for research purposes.
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck, we have lots of crops that really aren't available today...if not for people dedicated to protecting 'heirloom' vegetables. Notice how tomatoes nowdays pretty much have no flavor, but, are nice and uniform in color and size?
I went to a farm up north just outside of NH last year where they specialize in heirloom tomatoes. Man, I'd forgotten what they used to really taste like in my youth...and the different colored ones...some with yellow, tiger striped ones, purple ones....and many in non uniform shapes and sizes. But, flavor was the MAIN thing that stood out on these...
I really used to think the 'organic' foods movement was pretty much a crock...but, this started me thinking a little different...
WTF is a "canola" seed? (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI... There is no such thing as a canola plant or, by extension, canola seeds.
The term "canola" is a bastardization of "Canadian Oil", used by canadian growers in place of the less consumer-friendly name of the actual crop "rapeseed". The crop isn't refered to as canola until the oil is extracted.
So what you have here is "Roundup Ready Rapeseed", which sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:1, Interesting)
A former teacher of mine devised a method for making male-sterile corn (Zea mays).
You can play around with this of course. You can, for instance, make two lines. And that only if you combine them, the offspring is sterile. This way, you (ie, big evil company) can make seeds, while you sell only seeds/plants that are sterile. So that a farmer cannot use the plants you sold him to continue breeding.
Come to think of it. It's rather similar to owning legal movies/music/software, which you cannot copy, or improve...
This does not only apply to bioengineered seeds (Score:5, Interesting)
With many proprietary seeds, you are not permitted to save some of the harvested crop and plant them the next year unless you have the permission of the company owning those rights.
Do a web search on "Plant Variety Protection Act"
Re:Monsanto lobbies to repeal of laws of nature? (Score:2, Interesting)
An interesting thing I learned from reading Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire" is that apples have a high degree of genetic variation and never come true from seed. If you plant 10 Red Delicious seeds, you will not get 10 Red Delicious apple trees. You will get 10 very different plants, none of which resemble the parent. As I understand it, commercial apples are never propagated by seed - only by cuttings from the parent plant. (Not disagreeing with you - just adding an observation.)
OT: Amnesty International in Nepal? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Supposed to be sterile? (Score:5, Interesting)
I under stand that if you found the original pre-indian corn, it would be worth millions.
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:3, Interesting)
[tin foil hat mode]
They could as long a black helicopter didn't drop patented seeds on their fields durring the night.
[/tin foil hat mode]
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So, it spreads itself... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is the fact that the darn things are picked green for handling by automation and shipping, only later to be "ripened" by exposure to ethelyne gas.
The only trouble is that while the ethelyne may reproduce the softening portion of ripening that happens on the vine, it doesn't load up any of the tasty compunds into the tomato that normaly come from the vine during natural ripening.
And of course, your point about varieties of vegetables is correct. People don't want to go to the grocery store and purchase an unknown, though likely superior, item. They want predictablity. It's why people will go to a new town and get a burger at McDonalds instead of that mom and pop burger joint. McDonalds might be inferior, but it is always a known quantity.
THIS IS SOOOO FUCKING BULLSHIT! (Score:1, Interesting)
Multinational corporations truly exemplify(ok maybe the bastard abusing military also) what is WRONG WITH AMERICA(a selfish country if there ever was one). They need to be reigned in with tight controls. These GM trials are spreading by cross pollinating upto miles away from plant sites. Pretty soon all of our produce(even organic) with start to have fuckin fish and pig genes in them.
I FOR ONE AM SICK OF IT AND WILL DO SOMETHING DRASTIC ABOUT IT IF THINGS DONT CHANGE!
ever watch the ending to Fight Club? GET READY!
There will be a time when those evil corporatists in power will be fuckin shot with their entrails hung from the powerlines, and their heads put on poles in DC.
Re:THIS IS SOOOO FUCKING BULLSHIT! (Score:1, Interesting)
This decision is an outrage no doubt about it.
It's a symptom of an epidemic of sweeping the world.
Did you know in Australia we cannot use the name 'Port' to descibe the wine anymore, we must call it 'sweetened fortified wine' because it violates a fucking European patent for christs sakes!
The whole patent/copyright thing is spinning out of control.
Re:Supposed to be sterile? (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be, if this were a sane world. The judge found that the farmer infringed Monsanto's patent -- the cross-pollinated crop the farmer grew is best described by that favorite term of the music industry's defenders: stolen property.
The seed blew into his fields, crossed with his crops, and he grew "their property".
"youd think that the seed companies would have a real desire to keep these things sterile... otherwise other people will start to do this to develop their own private strains of GM crops... you cant sue them all... but I suppose you could try"
They don't want sterile crops. This is a win-win for Monsanto. They can continue to let their "privately owned" genes float on the winds to any field in the world, and it's the world's lookout to discover "Monsanto's" genes embedded in the world's crops. Failure to root out Monsanto's intellectual property will result in an IP lawsuit, with the likely outcome that the sued lose their property to pay damages to Monsanto.
"for what its worth, my confusion about the source of the seeds came from this quote in the article:
"Schmeiser argued the canola seed blew onto his property from a nearby farm. He has said the plants "polluted" his fields."
assuming of course that he isnt simply lying. "
How could he have "stolen" the genes? How can he lie? The basic facts are not disputed by Monsanto. Monsanto's seed, patented and protected Canadian law, blew into the farmer's field. He grew the crops. Monsanto owns his ass therefore.
I can't think of any clearer argument for throwing out "genetic patents". This gives Monsanto, or any other genetic "IP" company, the ability to grab land and cash at will.
There is no provision in the patent law to force Monsanto to stop permitting "their" genes to fly downwind and "contaminate" some else's crops, generating criminals by the thousands.
There also is no way to stop the seed from blowing around. That's what seeds do!
Re:Supposed to be sterile? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they finally "re-bred" early corn. I recall reading something about it a year or so ago. The "ear" is only a few inches long and has only four or five rows of tiny kernals. I believe they narrowed down Teosinte grass as the original ancestor of corn and "bred up" from there, just like the indians did. I wish I could remember where I read that...
Re:Supposed to be sterile? (Score:2, Interesting)
He was not sued for the crops that "blew into his field".
He was sued for what he did the following year; planting the seed from the geneticly altered crop from the year before. The court decided that he knew, or should have known, that his crop the second year around was monsanto's patented stuff.