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.'"
Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Not done yet (Score:1, Insightful)
Patents on life are STUPID. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
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.
Could farmers turn the tables? (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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.
Re:Naaaah (Score:1, Insightful)
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)
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, 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.
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: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.
Re:Finally (Score:3, Insightful)
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 an idea for the wear it all night condom. i have 2 years to turn more then $20,000 profit from my idea, or it's out in the public domain for someone else to have a crack out. this works because even if some asshole patents this, we can just wait them out, knowing their just patent squating and the moment their 2 years is up it's open season. If i CAN turn a profit on it, then it's obvious that i'm doing something with the idea, hence deserve it.
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: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.
Monstrous (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no surer sign that humanity's future is grim than corporations owning the rights to plants that humans grow for subsistence.
They own the water, they own the mineral wealth, they own the forests, they own the food, they own everything there is to own.
Truly, truly monstrous. That's the only word I can think to use to describe the situation.
Re:The impact is much bigger in India... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:2, Insightful)
f you want natural; starve, along with the billions of others that this planet couldn't naturally support.,/p>
Enough food is grown on the planet for everybody to eat a healthy diet, without resorting to GM Food. Starvation is the result of not distributing food to where it can be used. Famines are the result of governments playing political games with their population.
Amber
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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. Monsanto is one the "Agent Orange" corporations. Their "research" cannot be trusted. They've lied when they knew about grave health issues with their product. They continued to sell it even though it caused substantial harm to thousands of GIs and probably millions of Vietnamese. (And this is the tip of the iceberg concerning Monsanto.)
GMOs are designed for one reason, to make money. They do not care what the long term effect is as long as they can spin it. These foods are not designed to help the worlds poor, but to sell more product, to make farmers dependent on it, to add the food supply to the ever growing list of things that a few corporations control.
This is all marketing hype, there is no need for GMOs.
By the way, starvation is caused mostly by policy, not technology. There is more than sufficient food production. Maybe you should look into how the IMF & World Bank among others force third world countries into producing export crops, often even during times of starvation.
Re:Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:victory! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "American" farmers? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:1, Insightful)
Absolute certainty is not the standard, fortunately. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard in criminal cases, in civil cases the standard is even lower. Sure, enough seeds may have blown off a passing truck to seed 95% of his 50 acre farm with their crop, or perhaps pollen from a Monsato field pollinated 95% of his crop last year (despite the nearness of his own heirloom pollen 8" away). Except the fact that likely last year he planted Monsato crops and against his contract retained seed for this year (where the heck else did he get enough seed for planting his entire field?)
Intention seems to be irrelevant (Score:3, 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
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 decades, as spraying with bacteria producing those proteins has long been considered an organic form on pest control.
"GMOs are designed for one reason, to make money."
Monsanto's GMOs are designed for one reason, to make money. Fixed that for you.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 food/water supply it's kinda hard to avoid the product.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are growing Frankensteins, keep them locked up.
(Or we may just come to your house with torches)
Well Said (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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.
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:Should he have burnt his crop? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 if necessary...
People who advocate patent/copyright extension are the biggest leeches/thieves in society today. Some thing may be hard to research without a known market (drugs, that the government regulates heavily) but for every semi-valid patent there are a thousand absolute liars patents XOR and cat entertainment via laser pointers.
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 way is old fashioned "trade secrets". As your product hits the market, the secret will eventually be reverse engineered but you have time to make your cash. More importantly, you have the time to produce something better than the other guys who have to play catch-up.
Re:A great step, but only a small battle won.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 is not the case. I agree the patent system is open to abuse, particulary in the area of software but I also think a lot of people have used the patent system in the way it was intended and reaped benefits from it.
Let me put it like this: what study or source of reliable data do you use as a basis for your idea that the patent system is a net benefit to society?
I am in fact personally in favor of scrapping the patent system, because I've never heard anyone make a sensible case for why it should be kept. Yes, it has benefits, but those benefits come at, to me, a greater cost than they are worth. You don't need a patent system to have innovation. A free market will force people to innovate or fall behind. And for those things that aren't profitable without monopolies: put them in the hands of government. If you're going to have an inefficient mandatory monopoly, let it be one that people can vote out of office rather than one they have zero control over.
Re:Naaaah (Score:2, Insightful)