PubPat Kills Four Key Monsanto Patents 436
IP Ergo Sum writes "PubPat's request for reexamination resulted in the rejection of four key Monsanto patents. According to PubPat, those particular patents were being used to 'harass, intimidate, sue — and in many cases bankrupt — American farmers.'"
victory! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:victory! (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
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increasing the cost of something will never stop companys with GDP's larger then many countries. you think a million dollars for a patent on a crop is a problem? fuck bio research companys SHIT $1000000 bricks, they will view it as a minor cost.
the only way to prevent frivolous patents, is to put a very short time frame on profiting from a patent. say i come up with a
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are the two current options for an inventor. The first is to keep the process secret, and try to sell enough product before it is reversed engineered. Such an approach not only wastes a societies resources by shifted creative power from new problems to problems that have already been solved, but provides little predictability for business.
The second option is the patent. Put the details of the product out in the public. Accept the protection of the government for 10 years. This gives a predictable interval in which to market the product. It also gives a predictable interval in which to improve the product so it can compete with any copies that might eventually be placed on the market. In exchange for such protection, other can use the ideas to develop new non-competing products immediately, and eventually develop copies of the product for wider consumption. This is a win/win for everyone as the inventor has time to exploit the product commercially, especially in today's mass produced market, and society is allowed to exploit the idea intellectually.
Here is why I disagree with protecting the little guy, or anyone for that matter. First, it is difficult to define. A patent may be granted to a little guy, who may grow into a big guy or sell to a big guy. Is the patent to depend on this? Second, such reasoning lends itself to extend the period of patents, and even copyright for that matter. I would argue that given the reduction in production times, the patent and copyright time should be reduced, or altered based on production dates. For instance a drug might take 5-10 years to enter mass production, and therefore might need a longer patent, but one can imagine all sorts of other products that might only require a five year patent. Likewise, it is inconceivable that Disney has not already exploited the derivitive characters fully, and those characters should be put back in the public domain.
By focusing on return on investment, rather than encouraging innovation in society, one gets into the situation where IP does in fact halt innovation, especially where a five year product cycle seems long.
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The problem with pat
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1) Toss out the entire patent if any claims are disallowed. The applicant can start over from scratch and refile. If disallowed a second time, do not permit the applicant to file on the patent or any variation of it ever again. This would encourage the applicant to be very conservative in what he claims.
2) Remove the exclusitivity part of the notion of patents. Everyone who independently invents the same thing could get their own patent with the right to use, manufacture
A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This didn't stop Monsanto from suing such farmers into the ground.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who are using the regular crops are traditionalist or people who see a use/market for the crops. Most of the people I know who are against the GM crops and are actually farmers are in that position because of the contracts and not any perceived threats from the genetic managment of the seeds. They don't like the idea of having to pay extra for seeds if they have a bad year.
short-sighted (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:short-sighted (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just silly. There are lots of different kinds of seeds and lots of different kinds of crops. The patents in this case would all expire by 2011 even if they are eventually found valid.
Not as silly as you'd think (Score:5, Informative)
I am not against patents on an innovate breed of crop manufactured through genetic engineering per se. But the way Monsanto is pursuing farmers right now would be like if the RIAA demanded you pay for a copy of a CD whenever someone listening to a song simply drove by you in his car with his windows open. If Monsanto wants the benefit of patent-backed monopoly pricing on their product, then the onus should be on them to insure that people wishing to opt out of that monopoly have a clear means to do so.
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Believe me, if they thought they had a reliable way to keep track of that, they'd be doing it.
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I tend to think the patent system should be scrapped but I don't think we're at immediate ri
Feudalism... (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to be a jerk, but I have to question why the farmers just don't stick to their traditional crops (versus the GM versions) if Monsanto is so horrible. Not one is forcing them to buy GM seeds (they could have kept saving and resuing their old seeds forever, without having to buy anything from Monsanto). So either buying Monsanto seeds isn't a losing deal (i.e. the farmers still make more money than they would have otherwise) or the farmers have poor judgement. Am I missing something?
It seems to me that a lot of them are pretty much suckered into it. They are made to think that this is the latest thing in modern agriculture and that it will benefit them with higher crop yields and thus higher profit margins. To people who are often already having trouble turning a profit this is hard to refuse. Not that is easy to get your hands on unmodified seed stock any more. To add insult to injury even if you inadvertently planted GM seeds you are also fucked. To quote TFA:
American farmers are hard pushed to find high quality, conventional varieties of corn, soy and cottonseed. Anecdotal evidence supports this. Troy Roush, an Indiana soybean farmer says, "You can't even purchase them in this market. They are not available." Similar reports come from the corn and cotton farmers who say, "There are not too many seeds available that are not genetically altered in some way.".....
.....A further example is seed dealers who sell seeds in plain brown bags so farmers sow them unknowingly. This happened to Farmer Thomason who was harassed into court by Monsanto and sued for over a million dollars. He had no choice but to file for bankruptcy despite never intending to plant Bt cotton.
.....Farmers are under pressure to confirm their identity as modern agriculturalists, particularly in developing countries. But replacing the traditional strategy of saving and replanting seeds from diverse varieties by a patented seed with all its restrictions threatens food security at household and global levels......
Here's another choice quote:
Researchers at the University of Manitoba, Canada tested 33 samples of certified canola (oilseed rape) seed stock and 32 were contaminated with GM. The Union of Concerned Scientists tested traditional US seed stocks of corn, soy and canola and found 50% corn, 50% soy and 83% canola contaminated by GM.
.....Outcomes of lawsuits brought by Monsanto against farmers are mostly kept under wraps. If farmers are tempted to breach confidentiality they can face fines greater than the settlements. But where judgments have been publicly recorded, sizeable payments benefit not only Monsanto, but also partner companies.
One hundred percent purity is no longer achievable, and even if non-contaminated seed could be purchased, some contamination can take place in the field either by transfer of seed by wind, animals or via farm equipment.
Monsanto dominates the sale of seed stocks yet puts the onus of finding markets for crops on the farmer. Within their contract is the "Technology Use Guide" which gives directions on how to find grain handlers willing to accept crops not approved for use in the EU. While Monsanto acknowledges that pollen flow and seed movement are sufficient to contaminate neighbouring non-GM fields their implicit rule is that "the growers of the non-GM crops must assume responsibility and receive the benefit for ensuring that their crops meet specifications for purity.".....
Combined financial penalties have forced many farmers into bankruptcy and off their land. Agriculture is suffering losses all around because of the disappearance of foreign markets. The US Farm Bureau estimates that farmers lose over $300 million a year because European markets refuse GM corn. The US State Department says that as much as $4 billion could be lost in agricultural exports due to EU labelling and traceability requirements. Organic and conventional farmers
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of a patents system is limited monopolies to help the market. Without such a system, there's nothing stopping me from spending 10 years in a shed developing a revolutionary new vacuum cleaner, bringing it to market - and then you waltzing into a shop, buying one, copying it and selling it for half the price I do.
The point of a capitalist society is that the "10 years in a shed" bit gets rewarded with a time-limited monopoly, so instead of simply putting up with the status quo and accepting that all vacuum cleaners suck (if you'll pardon the pun), I have an incentive to do something about it above and beyond "making my house 4% cleaner".
Where monopolies do harm the market is where the system is abused. The obvious solution to that is a system which isn't terribly open to abuse. Many of today's patent laws were put together at a time when nobody imagined that a company might patent a genetically modified seed and then sue farmers for saving some from last years' crop for this year, or that a huge economy around software (which changes far faster than many other fields of innovation, and is thus not well served by 15-20 year monopolies) would develop.
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That's the intent, to be sure, but I think the parent's claim is that patents fail to achieve this.
That's the scenario patent advocates love to trot out, but try offering concrete e
Mod parent up. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad someone brought that up. When the patent expired, the efficiency of the steam engine shot up (see parent's link). And without patents, people still innovate because they need to make a buck. They just find other ways to get more value out of their invention. One wa
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:4, Insightful)
In a market without patents any new innovations or products would immediately be ripped off by the biggest company with the most money and manufacturing power and the original inventor would be screwed. Pretty soon people wouldn't share their inventions any more if they could actually keep the workings secret and if they couldn't they have trouble making any money from them so in the end no one would really bother.
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Linux distributions would benefit from legal playback of data stored in various proprietary codecs.
I don't believe that. Most inventions made to solve a problem are obvious after the fact ("why didn't
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Not true. If you scrap it, you remove all the costs involved with the patent system, like ineffective markets, delayed introduction of some categories of products (especially software is delayed strongly under the influence of a patent system), and spurious litigation by patent owners.
You're assuming that the current system has no positive benefits at all which I believe
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This has nothing to do with a patent; it's a licensing issue. Farmers want to continue doing business in the "old ways" while reaping the benefits of new tech.
Actually, it's a combination of patent and licensing. And the issue has farmers around the world somewhat nervous. Google for "Monsanto Percy Schmeiser". Mr. Schmeiser claims (and such evidence as e
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Allowing sexually reproductive GM life in the first place seems to me to be a Very Bad Idea.)
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Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't it the responsibility of the non-GM crops to prevent their pollen from fertilizing the GM farmers crops? If I breed a new strain of corn using traditional techniques is it my responsibility to make sure that doesn't fertilize anyone else's corn as well?
Don't get me wrong I agree that GM crops should require more extensive testing before they are declared safe but the idea that they can never be declared safe is just absurd. Of course we can't ever know something won't hurt us but that doesn't stop us from making reasonable calculations about risk. Of course biotech companies shouldn't be allowed to shut down a farmer just because his crops happened to get pollinated by GM material (I have no idea if this really happens) but that's just saying that we should treat GM crops sanely.
Any chance from the past is a risk whether it is faster computers (they might take over!!) or a new variety of crops. Dogmatically insisting that no type of GM crop could ever be safe enough to be worth the risk of letting it's pollen out into the wild is just silly.
In other words what's wrong with just deciding about each GM crop on a case by case basis using the best available science at the time (including the certainty we have in that science)?
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not normally - but then you aren't suing those others for having corn fertilized by your corn are you ?
If you use a water sprayer to irrigate your land, is it your responsibility to make sure the water doesn't go onto my land ? Probably not. However, if you spray onto my land and then sue me for using your water, I ought to be within my rights to tell you it _is_ your responsibility to keep your water on your land.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Genetic engineers notice an organism that does something that would be useful in another organism. If possible they isolate the protein(s) that create the useful effect. They then isolate the DNA that expresses that protein. They then insert that DNA into the other organism, and the protein is subsequently produced in the other organism.
Genetic engineering is just a way of putting useful proteins from one organism into another. Agriculture on a modern scale doesn't stand a chance without either genetic engineering or massive amounts of fertilizer and pesticide.
Genetic engineering isn't "natural", but then again agriculture itself isn't "natural". If you consider genetic engineering a "frankenfood" what about the walking udders, walking fur coats, unnaturally sized fruits, bizarre inbred wolves, etc, etc. Just because that genetic engineering was done with artificial selection doesn't make it any less natural.
If you want natural; starve, along with the billions of others that this planet couldn't naturally support. I have no idea what people have against genetic engineering. (Though I completely understand anti-Monsanto sentiment of course)
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Informative)
It has been proven scientifically that genes can spread across species (doesn't happen often but does), so who's going to be responsible if bad herbs become resistant and would have to be weeded out manually ? You think the world can't support its populace (which is definitely not true. Starving is not causes by drought or poor harvest, it's caused by war and corrupt politicians in the countries affected). But we definitely will have a problem if decades of herbicide research go to waste because one greedy irresponsible company releases random genes out into our environment.
If Mosanto and their brethen cared about world hunger they wouldn't sue farmers for using grain that happened to have been fertilized with their GM pollen. At the moment it appears that GM is not bad by itself but it is unprofitable unless you employ highly questionable business tactics.
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At the moment it appears that GM is not bad by itself but it is unprofitable unless you employ highly questionable business tactics.
Good points, but my post doesn't contradict it. I was just arguing that genetic engineering isn't a bad thing in itself, I still think that Monsanto is the evil twin of Microsoft in the agriculture industry.
I think you should re-read your post.
Frankenfood? You mean food that doesn't need to be sprayed with (as much) pesticide because it's biologically resistant to insects?
Maybe you were referring to some other GM-modification but Roundup Ready crops are engineered to be more resistant to Roundup herbicide, allowing it to be sprayed more heavily than would otherwise be the case. Roundup Ready is a classic example of monopoly-bundling leveraging one product to increase sales of another. Roundup is also a key ingredient on the massively successful *cough* "War on drugs" as it is purchased in quantity by the US Government for spraying on
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You are partially correct. Monsanto's crops "do work like that." They also have bt corn that protects against corn borers among other pests. Using bt corn, especially in corn on corn or 3rd year corn situations, allows you to get away with using no pesticides in som
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Genetic engineering isn't "natural", but then again agriculture itself isn't "natural".
Don't be naive. The whole "genetic engineering is just another form of selective breeding" argument is pure bunk.
Genetic engineering enables changes that would take multiple generations to create and then even more generations to attain wide-spread use to happen in the span of a single generation.
So if a particular inbred line of "walking udders" were to product deficient milk, the damage would be very localized before it was noticed and corrected. But a particular line of genetically engineered corn mig
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Don't be naive. The whole "genetic engineering is just another form of selective breeding" argument is pure bunk.
I never said it was, I only said that neither of them are natural. What is bunk is the widely held belief that a farmer with his combine 'arvester and ear 'o corn is a natural, one with the earth, age old arrangement.
Genetic engineering enables changes that would take multiple generations to create and then even more generations to attain wide-spread use to happen in the span of a single generation.
So if a particular inbred line of "walking udders" were to product deficient milk, the damage would be very localized before it was noticed and corrected. But a particular line of genetically engineered corn might make it into every box of breakfast cereal in the country for a couple of years running before people notice that it is shrinking the pensis of our youth.
The proteins that get introduced into these plants pass through our digestive system, a protein isn't about to get through your digestive system in-tact and be able to do damage.
The worst I've heard a GM food doing is triggering an allergic reaction, and one that wasn't particularly severe.
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I think you meant to say: Food that can be sprayed a lot more liberally with herbicides because it's resistant to them.
See Round-Up (tm) and Round-Up Ready (tm) seeds. Both by Monsanto, by pure coincidence, of course.
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Monsanto genetically modifies food so that it can get the farmer both ways, buying the seed and the tons of additional herbicide.
We evolved in the same biosphere as insects, so changes to a plant to prevent the insect from being able to eat them may also have effects on us. These are not properly tested. They should require many years of observation on animals feed these foods for a long time before they should be allowed on
None of these changes are tested properly. M
FUD about GMOs (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, sounds logical. Until you learn that the CRY proteins expressed by bt crops crystalize into their toxic form only under highly basic conditions. Because we took different evolutionary paths for millions of years, our stomachs are highly acidic while insects stomachs are highly basic. On top of that you've been eating the CRY proteins on organic food for
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Informative)
There's little to no evidence whatsoever that GMO's are killing bees. Some scientists are worried about a link, but it's highly unlikely. Bt insect resistance doesn't even target bee species; it targets lepidoptera, diptera and coleoptera. In otherwords, butterflys/moths, flys, and beetles. What order are honey bees in? Hymenoptera.
Furthermore, resistant plants target the larvae of susceptible insects; these bugs ingest the Bt protein, which is only toxic in basic insect midguts, and forms pores and destroys their gut. Do honey bee larvae grow on plants? No, I didn't think so. And while they do ingest pollen that worker bees bring back to hives, tests have shown that pollen with Bt is not toxic at all. [http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/safety_science/68.do
To sum it up, honey bees are fine after contact with Bt crops. Even larvae, which are Bt corn targets in susceptible species, were fine. Long story short, we're going to have to keep looking for a cause for CCD, and people need to stop screaming, "OMFGIT'SGMOS!" at the first sign of trouble. It's completely irresponsible, especially when there are more likely reasons for CCD, such as pathogens with extremely deleterious effects to colony health.
OT: Bee's are dieing due to Asian Parasite (Score:3, Informative)
Read more at:
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsi
(yes, this is off topic for the overall article... but I felt it was important enough to post this rather than use my moderation points)
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In turn they follow the dictat of the big supermarket chains - Asda (now owned by Wal-Mart) and Tesco (£1 in £4 pounds are spent at Tesco).
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If you don't like the behaviour of company X then don't invest in the shares or purchase their products - the problem is that if you have superanuation or a pension fund then you probably have already invested in company X and if company X has a monopoly on the f
be fruitful....... (Score:2, Interesting)
Patents on life are STUPID. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just Hope it Stays Patents (Score:2)
This is all irrelevant to the question that matters: Is the harm caused by giving one company a monopoly worth the benefits gained from incentivizing research. Now likely this calculation comes out against patents on naturally occurring genes since it is likely to encourage blank
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I think it's a given that the purpose of any biological system is to reproduce; mules are a freak.
I don't see any different between patenting instructions for the biological machines in our cells and for the silicon machines in our computers.
Indeed: patenting software is a bad idea whatever the context.
Maybe we will get lucky and the net effect will be to take software from copyright protection and put it under patent protection
That's t
well, (Score:2)
Patents in question (Score:5, Informative)
5164316: DNA construct for enhancing the efficiency of transcription
5196525: DNA construct for enhancing the efficiency of transcription
5322938: DNA construct for enhancing the efficiency of transcription
5352605: Chimeric genes for transforming plant cells using viral promoters
Yes, the first three have the same title. I haven't read any of them yet. You can find the full text on the USPTO web site. Search by patent number here [uspto.gov].
The impact is much bigger in India... (Score:4, Insightful)
Monsanto specialises in technologies that make farmers dependant on these firms every year for seeds and patented techniques. Not only should such patents be outlawed; it should be made a crime to work against nature and create genetic modifications that prevent seeds from germinating.
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Captialism is not the answer for all problems facing humanity. In fact, many of the most keenly felt problems afflicting humankind are a direct result of capitalism. People do not die for lack of capital, millions die every year for want of seeds (food).
if you can make money creating seeds that don't germinate then someone will.
If it is made a capital offence to do so, that would be an effective deterrent.
Trying to regulate that away just isn't going to work
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I think the goal is that people don't have to live as cheap labourers working the land all day, this sort of work is not actually much fun and uses up people who could be working in factories and industry modernising the country and bringing all the benefits of cheap power, mass industrialisation, improved communications and travel.
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I feel there are so many other techniques, that are even more effective in producing desired results you have stated above - without genetically inducing sterility.
In any
Could farmers turn the tables? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Could farmers turn the tables? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, it should be the governments job to keep an eye on situations like this, but when the political parties are allowed to take corporate donations, the whole system is b0rked before you start.
Monsanto is not your friend (Score:5, Informative)
Description:
THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.
From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.
Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.
IMDB link. [imdb.com]
-Sin Maíz no hay País-
Alternative to Future of Food Doc: Harvest of Fear (Score:5, Informative)
Harvest of Fear is a documentary on GMOs as well, produced by PBS. If anyone watches Future of Food, they should watch Harvest of Fear. This is primarily because I thought Future of Food (as another reply to this parent pointed out) seems to have been designed to scare the viewer shitless. Harvest of Fear, on the other hand, provides arguments and counter arguments for nearly every topic brought up, without the dramatics and theatrics featured in the Future of Food. You might find yourself agreeing with one viewpoint, and another take on that viewpoint will be brought up, and it gets you thinking.
In any case, it's good to watch the 2 and compare/contrast the views.
"American" farmers? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: "American" farmers? (Score:4, Insightful)
US Patents only apply in the US, in other words, to AMERICANS. These US Patents have nothing to do with non-Americans, except perhaps very few immigrants, if you want to get pedantic.
The problem (Score:3, Insightful)
GM first - the main problem I see with GM crops is not so much that "it is unnatural" and therefore harmful. Philosophically speaking, nothing we do is unnatural - it all follows the laws of nature, even if it isn't always good for us. That's an aside, though - the real problem is more one of genetic pollution. Never mind they say that it doesn't happen "very often", whatever that means; the basic idea with the gene modifications we see from the likes of Monsanto is to create a plant that has some sort of advantage, in a very narrow sense, over unmodified plants - once the modified gene escapes into the wild, which it will unless the modified plants are unable to reproduce sexually (and what is the point of corn that doesn't produce seeds?) - once the genes escape, we don't know what will happen. Perhaps the genes that were a moderate afvantage for a crop plant turns out to be a huge advantage for a wild species, and suddenly we have a big problem on our hands; we simply don't know, and we have no way of reliably assessing the risk. This however, is the least of the problems.
The real problem, as Monsanto shows us, is that these patents it will be used as a weapon by multinational corporations; it gives them power far beyond what is reasonable, and on a very dubious foundation. The likely truth is that no matter which genes any company "invents", they already exist somewhere in nature; in light of this I think the law should be changed, at least for genes - either it should rest on the company to prove that their invention is a real invention, or it should simply be impossible to patent genes.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Funny)
You cover 5.28 feet in a single step? If not, then it needs to be followed by three to four million more, depending on the length of your stride. If you shuffled, you could actually make it take ten million steps.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
You're obviously not up-to-speed with Monsanto. What happens is that a neighboring field cross-pollinates, or some seeds blow off of a passing truck, and all of a sudden, your "grandfather's strain" has been contaminated with the patented Monsanto genes. Somehow, they test your field and they sue you. You can't argue with the DNA, so you are SOL and they shut you down, even though you never wanted their genes to start with.
Re:Naaaah (Score:4, Insightful)
On a side note, From what I can gather the patent on GM grain is from 1994 (I thought it went further back than that) so there is still 7 years to go, however there are many groups and even nations opposing GM grains and other GM products. Monsanto really comes across as a company that does not care about anything except being a monopoly that controls all the world's food supply. It has even gone so far as patenting pigs http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/mons
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Interesting)
Since these costs are fairly high, many producers are choosing to declare their crops GM. Overall effects: basically, you can not choose to grow non GM crops.
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One Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser [wikipedia.org] claimed that, but that claim was rejected by
Should he have burnt his crop? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Schmeiser field was contaminated by Roundup Ready gene.
2. Schmeiser discovered this and decided to harvest, save seeds and plant them next year.
3. He has not used Roundup at all, so his decision in 2 was not because he wanted a free benefit, but just because he did not want to burn contaminated crop.
4. Appelate courts split 5:4. 5 for "use" means "any use", 4 for "use" means "for profit use".
Should he have burnt his contaminated harvest? Why? He was not under contract with Monsanto.
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Let Monsanto sit on it until they come up with a fool-proof way of keeping their seeds limited to those who buy them.
I want millions, and I've written software that I'm sure would help Monsanto. Should I patent it then slip it into their company networks via a worm and sue them? Seems like a winning strategy.
After all, if they hadn't wanted my patented software their IT department should have inspected every network packet, by hand i
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Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo!
"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field." ~Albert Einstein
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where they is no river." ~Nikita Khrushchev
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." ~P.J. O'Rourke
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Informative)
In all the cases that are cited in the PubPat press release [prnewswire.com] [prnewswire.com] the acts are intentional. No one is claiming accidental contamination.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, I didn't learn my genetics form Jurassic Park. I learned it from my professors in the Biology Department. But that was mostly because even after watching all three films, Steven Spielberg refused to give me a diploma or a refund.
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I learned all the genetics I need from the Bible, just like any decent American. Oh, and my bowl of Sea Monkeys too.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/87/ [xkcd.com]
http://xkcd.com/135/ [xkcd.com]
http://www.pitt.edu/~jrf27/cs1515/poster/jrf27.pd
Intention seems to be irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Interesting)
He also spent years in court losing lots of time and money.
Several people responded to you and your responders with no clue on this subject. Yes he was sued for have 90% contamination (numbers supplied by Monsanto testing) A round of testing by the University of Manitoba at the farmers request found that two of his fields had no contamination. Others had one percent, some had two percent and one had eight percent. In the ditch along the fields where we first noticed it, contamination was around 60 percent.
The GM crop is designed to resist being poisoned by roundup. He didn't use roundup so there was no benefit to him having the seeds. To the ignoramus that spouted "he had like 90% of course he was buying seed", well the RCIA says that disk you own is worth 150,000 they must be right, huh? It isn't in their interest to lie in their favor in the court is it?
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
WHO is going to shell out a minimum $5000 retainer to some lawyer just to get a consult?
WHO is going to continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at increments of $300 until the case is adjudicated in some lower court?
WHO is going to continue to spend even more money if the first round doesn't go to the "little guy"?
The family farmer is much like the garage inventor.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Informative)
It goes on to say that because of cross-contamination 'organic' crops often aren't organic any more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The technology to make GM crops sterile exists, but is not used [wikipedia.org].
It's like the ultimate DRM, except instead of not being able to listen to music you starve to death. Smart, eh?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:mirror request (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axU9ngbTxKw [youtube.com]
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&o i=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=monsanto+BGH+fox +news&spell=1 [google.com]
http://www.foxbghsuit.com/ [foxbghsuit.com]
the reporters got shit canned for it and Monsanto protected their bottom line.
Milk is very bad for you with all this BGH in it.
Causes Cancer.
Second try (Score:5, Informative)
The largest recorded judgment made thus far in favor of Monsanto as
a result of a farmer lawsuit is $3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments
granted to Monsanto for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82. Farmers have
paid a mean of $412,259.54 for cases with recorded judgments.
Startling though these numbers are, they do not begin to tell the whole
story. Many farmers have to pay additional court and attorney fees and are
sometimes even forced to pay the costs Monsanto incurs while investigating
them. Final monetary awards are not available for a majority of the 90 lawsuits
CFS researched due to the confidential nature of many of the settlements.
No farmer is safe from the long reach of Monsanto. Farmers have
been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone
else's genetically engineered crop; when genetically engineered seed from a
previous year's crop has sprouted, or "volunteered," in fields planted with
non-genetically engineered varieties the following year; and when they
never signed Monsanto's technology agreement but still planted the patented
crop seed. In all of these cases, because of the way patent law has been
applied, farmers are technically liable. It does not appear to matter if the use
was unwitting or a contract was never signed.
Re:Why Is There Such Opposition To Biological Pate (Score:3, Informative)
Being able to own a product that autoreproduces by design, uncontrollable by the patent owner, is bad. Sort of the viral infection tha
Re:Why Is There Such Opposition To Biological Pate (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there's a chance that you're making a sincere argument? Yeah, probably...
If Monsanto's GM patented genes were "containable" then I would say there's good argument for your side of this. But the problem lies and always has lied in it being uncontainable. Accidents of all sorts have happened and worse. One of Monsanto's tests is to kill a section of a farmer's field. If it doesn't die, then it contains their GM patented genes. (If the witch floats...) There is pollination as a problem... the GM patented gene plants give even if they don't receive. And seeds ALSO have a way of blowing in the wind in the cases where the seed IS the product like wheat.
But ultimately, there are far too many innocent people being harmed by this one corporation. This one corporation, by itself, has managed to harm humanity in ways that are simply unprecedented. If you truly believe that the value of money is of higher importance than that of the future of humanity, you need to rethink your position on this since the odds are good that you are also human.
Just as patents on medicines are used to deprive people unable to pay for it from life, these patents on food are used to deprive people unable to defend themselves growing their own crops.
There's an entire planet out here that doesn't care about "the value of a stock" and the systems of nature do no ask permission from lawyers.
Re:Why Is There Such Opposition To Biological Pate (Score:4, Insightful)
Healthcare shouldn't be an "industry." It is and should always be a service. It's not a product and it shouldn't be a product. Health shouldn't be treated as a commodity to be bought or sold and certainly not the exclusive domain of the wealthy or the privileged. Technology and development of technology ultimately belongs to all of humanity. It is a "favor" that any given governmental body rewards those who develop things that benefit the world a temporary monopoly, but it is exactly when that monopoly is abused or used as a weapon to stifle other business, the rights of individuals, or otherwise adversely affect the world or mankind, then that monopolist should be stopped in some way.
Business that serves people in delivering things that people need for survival such as healthcare and food should be held outside of normal business in that their practices do not follow the normal supply and demand market paradigm. The demand doesn't vary based on supply or pricing. There will always be a need for healthy foods. There will always be a need for quality healthcare. And to allow profit-seeking business to adversely affect peoples lives so that they can "protect their property" (which is ultimately given to them "by the people") is not just an immoral act, but an act against the interests of humanity.
As the food industry goes, (the original topic here?) should Monsanto and companies like them be allowed to freely pursue their aims, it would remove healthy organic foods from the market place replaced by "patented foods" which can only be grown and produced with their permission and sold by their rules. All the while, they are completely escaping the collateral harm they are causing. There are links being made, for example, between GM foods and the decline in the bee population. (Bees are an indispensable and irreplaceable part of farming and the world's ecosystems such that the extinction of bees would mean the extinction of man quite literally.) There have been many other problems identified with the use of "disease resistant" and other durable forms of GM foods as well, many of which lead directly to health problems. But as choice for healthy food diminishes, (and the cost for healthy food goes higher) the quality of life diminishes as well... they are presently not being held accountable.
"fortunately, the bootleggers take care of that"? Are you kidding me? Profiteering and illegal acts are a "fortunate" byproduct of an already humanity-abusive system?! Are you thinking your own thoughts to conclusion?
I have failed in being brief, but only because I see this as a critical issue.