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Patents Science

Patented Food Threatens Crop Improvements 121

Posted by michael from the drop-the-chalupa dept.
g8orade writes: "This NYT article presents the increasingly difficult path researchers in public arenas (universities) have distributing the results of their efforts, because of patents held on the genetic structures of food crops. Stallman makes a big case for distinguishing between copyright and patents, but anyone want to start the Free Food Foundation?"
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Patented Food Threatens Crop Improvements More

Patented Food Threatens Crop Improvements

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  • It's called the Seed Savers Exchange. Folks who trade seeds of open pollinated (non-hybrid seeds. No copyrights, no patents. Ever.

  • Not as bad as you'd think (Score:3)

    by alewando ( 854 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:30AM (#217512)
    In principle it sounds pretty bad, but when it's actually applied in the real world, the problems aren't as horrible as they'd seem. Most research isn't being done by universities anymore. It's being done by private corporations. Whatever your philosophy about the behavior of the modern corporation, we can both agree that universities and their place within our society today are in steep decline. As enrollment has dropped and employment opportunities that do not require degrees have grown, the university experience is about to wink out. To protect the interests of these scientists is therefore a quixotic attempt to hold onto the remnants of a disappearing past.

    Is this the end of the world? No. If scientists are having trouble publishing their research to a rapt audience (journal readers), then they can simply seek a new environment (corporation) where they can publish their research to an equally important and rapt audience (fellow corporate team members). They will still have all the benefits of publishing (social status, royalties) but without the legal hassle (corporations protect their own) and for significantly greater salaries (let's face it, universities can't afford to pay good salaries anymore).

    Adaptation, evolution, extinction, repropagation. We're doing just fine.
  • First, I have got many friends who decided to pass a doctorate so that they could work in a university.
    Why? Because of less stress, a more interresting job, more free time... They know they will earn less money, big deal! They are going to work twice less than someone in the corporate world. And that's valuable... (especially if you plan to have a life outside your work)

    Besides, reasearch does not work in a pure corporate model. There has often been 20-30 years (in the last century) between a theory and the time it get's applied. Which company will invest in a reasearch where they will have to wait that long before getting any return on investment?

  • The real threat isn't nearly as spectacular, but is simply that one of these new breeds of crop will contain a defective gene which will cause it to be susceptible to some problem.

    May not happen right away, but say perhaps in 40 years, something happens and all corn in the US is hit by some problem which wipes it out because of this genetic weakness.

    There are groups in the USDA, in Universities, etc. who work specifically to keep seed samples of the original species so that they are not lost.
  • You know, if you were starving and a new modified strain of wheat was available to help... I doubt you'd be bitching.

    One of the luxuries of being fat and lazy is you don't have to worry about eating, I guess.
  • I hate to break it to you but all gmo food is bad because we are unsure. Eat real food (tm)

    The problem with that "logic" is that "real food" hasn't been tested either. You may say "Well, natural things don't need to be tested; everyone knows that they are safe". But history shows us that products from totally non-gmo'ed plants can be unhealthy. People smoked totally non gmo-ed tobacco for thousands of years before even considering the possibility that it was unhealthy.

    And French people drank a neurotoxic liquor called "absinthe" (made from the natural wormwood tree) for several hundred years without noticing the ill effects.
  • immediately and globally engage in mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing of all copyrighted and patented materials.

    In this case organisations like the Seed Savers Network [seedsavers.net] are protecting examples of prior art by ``mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing''. Kind of outdoes RFC 1149 [isi.edu] or RFC 2549 [isi.edu].

    The saved seeds are far superior collections of genetic material, in that the patented seeds are closely bred (ie, ``thin'' genetic material, won't breed true) and/or genetically modified, so almost always require special (expensive, proprietary) fertilisers, pesticides etc ad nauseum in order to produce their huge yields.

    Finally, the whole idea is an open source/sharing kind of thing, very much in tune with the current software revolution.

  • No amount of GM can solve that problem. Once a species is gone it is GONE!

    Until a sufficient amount of GM is done to recreate it, of course. Once a species is gone (especially a plant species), there it still likely to be some DNA left over, making its restoration relatively trivial as GM goes. Even if there isn't any residual DNA, a certain level of GM technology should allow the necessary gene sequence to be recreated.

    (Not that I'm really disagreeing with your point, mind you, just pointing out a factual error.)

  • Not to nitpick, but "killer" bees weren't artificially created or genetically engineered; they were just imported into the Western hemisphere from Africa, and are taking over because they're fiercer than the normal bees we have over here. It's still a huge problem, but not necessarily a genetic engineering issue.

    Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

  • Last month there was a Frontline/Nova special on PBS called Harvest of Fear [pbs.org]. This is a very complex issue, the show presented a well thought out and balanced view of the issues. I suggest anyone concerned with this issue watch this show if they can find it. You can buy it [pbs.org] from PBS for $20, though it says backordered. Just search for Harvest of Fear, can't post link to the item directly because of lameness filter.
  • Do you have a source about the third world countries growing cash crops instead of food?

    I saw a documentary about GM foods on PBS (Harvest of Fear, I gave links in another post). They showed an African scientist developing a disease resistant sweet potatoe. Doubled or tripled the yield. The poor farmers they showed who were basically just farming to barely feed their families would greatly benefit from this. They could cut down the number of farmers for a village and send some of their kids to school.
  • OK, so isn't this a big argument for GM foods? They can continue the cash crops and continue the same amount of sustenance farming but get more out of it with GM crops. They feed their people and continue their economic growth.
  • The real problem is that even universities have started thinking of research as a patent creator rather than as a publication creator. "Publish or perish" was a doctrine that certainly had it's problems, but it did create public knowledge, and foster the desimination of same. Research to make a patent is designed to hide the results, and to slow down the desimination of knowledge. This is quite antithetical to the traditional position of the university. I think it may be even worse than the government controls that came with federal subsidies. Not that the controls were removed when the subsidies were removed. (Though they generally were eased a bit.)


    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • This would most definitely kill Stallman's favourite motto:

    "Free as in Freedom, not as in Free Beer. No, not that Free Beer, the other Free Beer, the one wher you don't pay"

    Or the other way around, imagine the Free Food Foundation guys:
    "Free as in Free Software, not as in Free Beer".

  • India Fights U.S. Basmati Rice Patent [biotech-info.net]

    ... Basmati rice, sought-after for its fragrant taste, was developed by Indian farmers over hundreds of years, but the Texan company RiceTec obtained a patent for a cross-breed with American long-grain rice. RiceTec was granted the patent on the basis of aroma, elongation of the grain on cooking and chalkiness. However, the Indian government last week filed 50,000 pages of scientific evidence to the US Patents and Trademarks Office, insisting that most high quality basmati varieties already possess these characteristics.

    ... There are currently more than 200 patents granted on rice, almost exclusively to US and Japanese companies. It is currently not possible to patent staple foods and crops in Europe or developing countries but a European directive is about to change that in the EU.
  • From the article:

    "One thing people could argue is, How can a company own the most important food crop in the world?" said Dr. Rod A. Wing of Clemson University. "In Asia, rice is like a religion. To own a religion, so to speak, that's just a question. Can you do that? I don't think so."

    I think L. Ron Hubbard has the answer to that one.

  • It is a well known, very bad story (Score:3)

    by ubi ( 23702 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @03:32AM (#217527) Homepage
    I'm sorry for those that do not see this as a great problem, yet this is part of a larger trend towards the bulding of fences against freedom of reasearch.
    And, there is much more.
    The trend to claim rights on food has gone beyond from covering really new food. Large companies are extending their grip on vegetables that exist since a long time and have also been able to stop some food importation from poor countries where such vegetables have been used for a long time.
    A strongly hit country, for instance, is India. Someone has actually patented or tried to patent Basmati Rice, black pepper, mustard, etc... all eaten for centuries.
    Oh! I forgot to say that these well-known companies often are the same ones that introduced genetically-modified food in Europe illegally, for years, relying on the late intervention of law enforcerers (it's always been more profitable to pay a fine later rather than stopping a good business...)
    I do not exactly know about the situation in the USA, but in Italy and in Europe the problem is more felt from a general point of view than from the point of view of university studies, which are not affected so much.
    I think that we should broaden our perspective and really understand what's going on because all of these facts are tightly related...
  • Recently, as part of the seminar I saw M.S. Swaminathan (father of "Green Revolution') and Timothy Reeves (Director of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)). They both spoke on agriculture technology in developing nations. First, they noted the large impact agriculture has on society; especially in developing countries where most of the population consists of farmers. They noted how improvements in wheat seeds have resulted in changing wheat production by an order of magnitude. For example, in just a few years India was able to increase its wheat production four-fold. Today, India is one of the largest exporters of wheat. This ability for developing countries to produce sufficient food is important to their own security and well-being. CIMMYT is a center that is devoted to creating and improving sustainable agriculture technology for developing countries. These goals are in stark contrast to those of developed countries, for example such as creating another more tasty variety of tomatoes. Instead, CIMMYT is focused on developing wheat and corn strains that are more nutritious and drought resistant. Two specific technologies that CIMMYT is focused on are asexual reproduction (apomixis) and no-till seeds. The use of apomixis would allow farmers to use the seeds from the last season's crop to plant for the next season, thus allowing farmers a measure of self-reliance. This contrasts with developments by multinational corporate agriculture companies who are designing plants that cannot reproduce, so new seeds must be purchased every year. Another important technology is the use of no-till seeds. This would allow people to grow their own food without having to rely on mechanized plows, instead they could just scatter the seeds. Thus, CIMMYT has developed agriculture technologies for people that conventional market economics would not serve. Moreover, it is difficult to see CIMMYT technologies, which are based upon empowerment and sustainability, in the same way Heidegger viewed technologies such as the power plant. Thus I think it is important for us to remember that humans can change technology for positive outcomes. What iS CIMMYT [cimmyt.org]
  • They have a patent on the 'Special Sauce' used in the Big Mac, don't they?

    dave

  • Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.

    Get out into the real world someday and see how wrong you are.

    I used to work for one of those evil drug companies. It costs roughly $100-250 million and 8-12 years of time to get a drug on the market. What possible incentive is there to spend that kind of bucks if a generic drug maker can copy it the day it becomes legal? You have no edge whatsoever over your competition by doing all this work: all you get are the costs.

    Patent is utterly necessary for this kind of work. Banning it would stop most research in its tracks.

    Eric

  • Hey, no offense, but that drugco you worked for could spend 50% more on R&D, charge 50% less for its drugs, and realize substantially more profit, if it would simply cut marketing expenditures by roughly 50% (preferably more).

    Not even close. Look at the figures sometime and you'll realize that cutting marketing expenses out entirely would only drop the price by 25%. R&D expenditures are at least as large as marketing, so you can't increase them anywhere near that much.

    I don't like the marketing expenses either: I'm all for banning ads for prescription drugs. But the dollar figures are nowhere near what people think they are. R&D and making the drug are most of the cost, and always will be.

    Fucking profit monger subhuman drugco overlords really make me wanna McVeigh every headquarters and lab they own

    And how would you run them? If you understand anything at all about the drug business you'd realize that very few drugs are profitable: Merck, Pfizer and the like survive on a few profitable ones like Vioxx and Tagamet while losing money on virtually everything else. (The plant I worked at had to keep a bunch of horses: the only US supply of black widow spider antivenom. Think that makes them a dime?)

    Worse, you have no assurances that any future drugs will even work, much less make you money. Without serious cash reserves you could end up drugless and have no money for R&D. What then? You can't make much of anything off of things that aren't patented: generics will kill you on price since they do no R&D.

    Drug companies have become whipping boys since they make a lot of money. But they also have immense expenses and the possibility of having R&D fail. How would you do it?

    Eric

  • This is a normal scenario for any situation where the act of creation has a large up-front cost, but the actual implementation is more incremental.

    Normal in what world? Certainly not in high dollar-high risk R&D areas like drugs, aerospace, semiconductor design and the like. Sure, basic R&D is funded by the government, but application level is done by private companies, at least here in the US.

    State sponsored R&D isn't always the best approach anyway. For basic R&D it rocks since the payoff horizon is too far for most companies, but development level often sucks rocks. See the Concorde and the Japanese 5th gen computer project for good examples. Airbus couldn't survive without government subsidies, and it still has a hard time competing with Boeing. And of course we can look at the huge number of new drugs turned out by state supported research in Canada and Europe. I'm sure I'll think of one eventually.[1]

    And of course, you really want to add a multi-billion dollar line item into the government budget? Merck's R&D budget was $2.3 billion last year. Total up Pfizers', Glaxo's and the other few hundred drug companies budgets out there. Even allowing for overlap, it's a huge amount.

    Eric

    [1] Of course, we end up with problems with this approach as well. For example, little research dollars into malaria, which is probably the single worst disease in terms of productivity lost in the world.

  • Well, I don't know about your planet, but this certainly isn't true on mine. You've obviously never seen a real university from the inside.
  • Yeah, them and everyone else who combined a little relish with Thousand Island dressing...
    --
  • in most civilised countrys it isn't a religion..

    //rdj
  • Why did i think of Bill Gates when i read that? Maybe because he argues [blinkenlights.com] so much like UGGTHUG.
  • That's a point I don't understand. They may own any modified rice crops they come up with, but they can't own rice, just because they sequenced its genetic code. At least I hope so ...
    It's a good thing US IP laws don't apply in Asia ...

  • Re:Not as bad as you'd think (Score:5)

    by ghoti ( 60903 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @01:04AM (#217538) Homepage
    I agree that there is a lot of corporate research now, much more than there used to be. But that is certainly not the end of academia.
    Even for corporations, it is still of importance and value to be able to access information without having to do their own research for every little thing. Research is expensive, and it is becoming ever more so. And especially in genetic engineering, biology, etc the costs are tremendous.

    But there is also another reason, which I find more important: If at some point in the future all research is done by corporations, that will be a great loss to all of us. If suddenly *all* the new findings are owned by somebody instead of being released to the public, that will make it impossible to do new stuff on your own (like doing Open Source programming, or setting up a small company to do something). And besides, no meaningful research will be possible any more, because any two companies that do similar stuff will continuously infringe on the other's intellectual property.

    So imho, the opposite is going to happen: At some point, the corporations will find out that they are hampering their own work, and will start to either support academic work, or stop patenting everything. (yeah, maybe I am being a little optimistic, but that is really my opinion)
  • This can, of course, never work, since everyone knows TANSTAAFL. But, of course, that still leaves breakfast and dinner open for discussion.
  • As eXtro listed, there are plenty of jobs that universities prepare people for. It is true that universities have become more focused on professional training in the last 50 years as opposed to liberal arts studies, but that shows growth, not a descent into irrelevance. As for the argument that you don't need a degree to do many jobs that's true, but if an employer says they want one, I'd call that a requirement.

    Do you work in tech? I ask that because of your assertion that the existence of libraries = a reasonable adult education infrastructure. As a tech worker, I've seen how many companies equate a book budget with a training budget. Sad. But my latest gig paid for me to attend classes, at a university no less.

    But back to the topic, the need for universities to do research. Although many universities do research based on grants from corporations, I don't like the idea of moving that responsibility to corporations as a whole. All research will then be done based on possible ROI as opposed to the curiosity of the researchers or the mission of a nonprofit institution. Too few companies will even engage in basic research. We'd lose that if universities were taken out of the picture.
  • Enrollment dropping and a degree isn't necessary to get a job? I'm sorry, but both of those are terribly wrong. Just because a bunch of 19 year-olds can get jobs in tech without much education, for anyone else in just about every other field a degree is essential. Unless of course you're talking about all those fast food jobs going unfilled. I don't see the university experience going away anytime soon. We may be seeing changes in how education is acquired (note the growth of places like the private for-profit University of Phoenix, which probably have no interest in research), but the need for education isn't going away anytime soon. If nothing, it's on the increase. One other question, exactly how are all those corporate scientists supposed to get their training, apprenticeships?

    Your other point about the expense of research for universities is valid, but what about the desire of private organzations to get into research for the possible patent income? What good can come from that?
  • Do you have a source about the third world countries growing cash crops instead of food?

    Well, here's a good start [iornet.com]. That's just the GDP breakdown for Kenya for 1997-98. To be fair, I'm only going to discuss what I know, and since your argument was about yams in Africa, this particular example is probably apropos. Notice first that the top GDP producers are agriculture and tourism, and foremost among their exports are tea, coffee, and "horticultural products" (notably carnations). Sisal is also in the top 10.

    Just from having spent some time there, I can tell you that there are huge tracts of pinapple, coffee, tea, and sisal, all of which are cash crops. If you look at that page again, you'll also notice that their main sources of imports are the EU, UK, and US, and their main imported products are machinery and refined petroleum. This is the typical 3rd world scenario: export raw materials at fluctuating world market prices, and import processed products at significant markups. This dichotomy demands lots of cash cropping to maintain the supply to the first world countries.

    Now, this doesn't mean that subsistence farming is gone, or even necessarily rare. But when I was there, there was a famine in northeast Kenya, and the farmers in the central province couldn't be bothered to stop their cash crop production to help. Ironically enough, there was also a glut of corn on the world market at the time, and so the farmers who DID grow that were going broke at the same time people 200 miles away were starving.

    ---

  • but anyone want to start the Free Food Foundation?

    Well, it's not exactly that, but Native Seeds/SEARCH [nativeseeds.org] is an important step. Their goal is to "conserve, distribute and document the adapted and diverse varieties of agricultural seed and their wild relatives" in the Southwest US.

    These hearty species have adapted to life here over thousands of years (well, as far back as you want to go, actually, but the climate has changed radically in that period), and are already resistent to the blights found here. Plus biodiversity is maintained, so no particular scourge should wipe out an entire species.

    Oh yeah, and you're free to plant as many times as you want after buying the seeds. In fact, you're encouraged to cultivate your own line.

    ---

  • Well, okay, just for the record, the reason that there are starving people in the world has nothing to do with a global food shortage. In the world, there exists tons and tons of extra food - much surplus is destroyed every year.

    Sure, there are periodic famines when arid areas have droughts. In times like these, the real problem is with food distribution. Particularly, the problem is that they often try to ship (ie) corn meal from the US to east africa, and big surprise, it's rotten when it arrives. It'd be nice if they had a more regional food supply to tap into, wouldn't it? Except eveyone else in east africa is busy growing cash crops so they can "benefit" from participation in the global economy instead of growing adequate food for their region.

    So the starvation excuse for GM is just that: an excuse. There are many less threatening ways to feed the world's population. Furthermore, regarding your "fat" comment: in fact, the most overweight people in western nations are the lower classes, and they suffer disproportionately many health problems on account of this. The "big corporate fatcat" metaphor is tired and outdated.

    ---

  • Re:Not as bad as you'd think (Score:3)

    by Mike Connell ( 81274 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @04:42AM (#217545) Homepage
    [Scathing Sarcasm]
    Oh yeah! Great counter argument! You have proved conclusively that a world with coporate research is a bad thing(tm).
    [End Scathing Sarcasm]

    I'm sorry if my post was too complicated for you, I'll try and explain it here. Note that although it was made as a joke, it highlighted a real point: Corporate research is funded to directly benefit the corporation. The bottom line, the shareholders. There is no escaping this. Only the largest and richest of the multinationals do a substantial amount to pure work (IBM, spawn of AT&T, etc).

    University research is by and large done to further the "state of the art", ideally it is "relevant" to current commerical problems, but it is not driven by those problem. My post presented the very real problem that would exist if all "research" was conducted by corporations in a humorous light, but the real effect would be both harder and more chilling. I did not make the case that corporate research is a "bad thing", as I don't believe it is. However, if all research was corporate, it would indeed by very bad.

    As for your scathing sarcasm, I suggest in future you save it for a post that you can understand (presumably one with less complexity than my two line offering).

  • Re:Not as bad as you'd think (Score:5)

    by Mike Connell ( 81274 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:53AM (#217546) Homepage
    Anyone who believes that corporate research can or should replace university research deserves to live in a world where this has taken place.

    I hope you enjoy your Genetically modified Mc Pokémon toy high cholesterol sweetener enriched CSS encrypted happy meal.
  • 1- Once again: Patents do not stop research. They just stop people from making money with someone else's discovery. Or at least that is the purpose of patents.

    2- I would be quite suprise if anyone has managed to patent existing food stuff, as you mentioned. Do you have any information on this?

  • Sort of. It has been the case for quite a long time already in chemistry/drug research that companies that make new chemicals/biologicals spend a bit of time and money researching if they have infranged a patent. This is normal and reasonnable since they themselves would like to patent their discovery and make money out of it. So if you want to use someone else's discovery, you pay them or you wait since patents don't last for ever.
    Now, I agree with you that this strategy is becoming more and more difficult since all kind of crap is being patented. But, maybe it is so because more patentable discoveries are made. Maybe all this is good news. Maybe many scientists can at last make more money than lawyers and doctors (in medecine). But still, you are quite right that too many broad patents are issued.
  • even if you did the work to "discover" it yourself & they just happened to get to the patent office a little earlier
    Well duh! That's research for you.

    like distribute seeds with patented genes for FREE to starving people
    Like it has been said many times before, people don't starve because of bad crops, but because of bad governements and wars. Most GM crops are sterile anyway, so you would have to distribute FREE crops to starving people every year. Does that sound like a good idea?

  • Ridiculous! All patented information is publically available. You can freely do research with it but you cannot sell a product based on some patented technology without an agreement/fee from the patent holder. This is about money, not freedom of information!

    I quote from the article: California strawberry growers canceled a project to develop a strawberry resistant to fungus for fear that they would not be allowed to let the strawberry be grown commercially, said Dr. Alan Bennett, executive director of the office of technology transfer at the University of California, which discovered the fungal resistance gene.
    Do you think they are trying to save the world from hunger? With strawberry! Yeah right!

  • Well duh! That's research for you.
    No, that's the results of PATENTS. In the absence of patents, you'd still be able to reap the fruits of your research, even if somebody else happened to get the same results from their research a little ahead of you.
    Like it has been said many times before, people don't starve because of bad crops, but because of bad governements and wars.

    So? It would still help starving rural people if you gave them free seeds. And you have a helluva lot more chance of helping them than you do of trying to deal with the greedy people who are the primary cause of bad governments & wars.

    Most GM crops are sterile anyway, so you would have to distribute FREE crops to starving people every year.

    Are you being deliberately obtuse? If you're going to all the trouble of trying to make people self-sufficient by giving them free seeds, then you're going to give them stuff they can reuse!

    Besides, if you're referring to the Monsanto "Terminator" seeds, Monsanto (the primary global source of GMed crops today) decided several years ago not to distribute those types of seeds (at least not where the public would find out) due to public criticism. I haven't heard any reports of them sneaking the seeds into the general supply, especially given the current publicity concerning ANY GMed food, so your scenario of having to give free crops to starving people every year is bogus.

  • 1- Once again: Patents do not stop research. They just stop people from making money with someone else's discovery. Or at least that is the urpose of patents.

    Patents can make it worthless to do research. Not only are you prohibited from making money from the patented idea (even if you did the work to "discover" it yourself & they just happened to get to the patent office a little earlier), but you can't do anything with the idea that might hurt the patent-holder's profit stream (like distribute seeds with patented genes for FREE to starving people).

  • Drug companies have become whipping boys since they make a lot of money. But they also have immense expenses and the possibility of having R&D fail. How would you do it?

    Classic situation of wanting to encourage the massive R&D expenditure for a product which is supposed to benefit the general public, but also wanting the typical laws of supply & demand to make sure that the product is made available to the generic public as efficiently as possible.

    The classic answer is, of course, since the R&D is for the public good, then the generic public should pay for it in the form of taxpayer-financed basic research. Then you let private companies use non-exclusive access to the results of that R&D so that they will compete with each other to provide the most value to their customers.

    This is a normal scenario for any situation where the act of creation has a large up-front cost, but the actual implementation is more incremental. No one entity wants to be responsible for the upfront cost & then get screwed by the others for the implementation, so the only way to "naturally" get through this dilemna is by forcing some sort of cooperation between all the entities to share the upfront cost.

  • "Normal" was the incorrect word to describe the current situation - I meant it SHOULD be normal.

    For basic R&D it rocks since the payoff horizon is too far for most companies

    That's pretty much what I mean - in the absence of draconian intellectual property law, all that stuff tends to have a payoff horizon too far for most companies. Therefore in the absence of draconian intellectual property law, the expensive, up-front basic R&D stuff for the sake of the public good should be paid for with public funds - to the point where companes CAN see a reasonable payoff horizon (even given competition). At that point they'll be happy to pick up the ball & do the development to get the product to market.

    Without public financing, though, you pretty much have to give someone/an organization a pretty big handout (monopoly) to make them interested in the investment - and then the results are under the control of THAT entity, not for the public good.

    And of course, you really want to add a multi-billion dollar line item into the government budget? Merck's R&D budget was $2.3 billion last year. Total up Pfizers', Glaxo's and the other few hundred drug companies budgets out there. Even allowing for overlap, it's a huge amount.

    I believe that the savings in health costs to the public would far outweigh the expense of doing this basic research. And, as you mention, there is the potential for a fair bit of synergy if all your researchers are working together & sharing information.

    Also, I dunno about you, but the major reason that I complain about the amount being taken from my paycheck for taxes isn't really the amount - our European friends get docked significantly larger percentages than we (USians) do - it's because I feel like a significant amount of my money is being wasted on pork barrel projects, bureaucratic waste & corporate subsidies. If I was getting regular reports of useful ideas & seeing inexpensive incredible new products/services using technologies where the basics had been worked out with my tax money, I'd feel a lot happier about our governmental representatives.

    Of course, we end up with problems with this approach as well. For example, little research dollars into malaria, which is probably the single worst disease in terms of productivity lost in the world.

    Quite true, and there is also the cynical view that many drug companies are deliberately trying to find drugs which "manage" sicknesses instead of actually curing them, so that they can milk the consumer for every penny. A publically-financed organization whose charter specifically required a goal of research for the greater public good (and which can be public audited to maintain accountability) is much less likely to make decisions designed to screw as many consumers as possible for as long as possible.

  • you, the eater, by eating our genetically modified and/or enhanced food, agree to the following terms:

    1: buying and eating our food does not constitute ownership of the food. we own the food at all stages and permutations. yes, that means we'll own your crap, too.
    2: the food may or may not be nutritional.
    3: unforseen genetic diseases caused by eating our food products are not our fault.
    4: you are what you eat, and since we own the food (see #1 above) that helped build you, we own you. report to soylent facility green for immidiate assimilation.

    i worry that someday, a serious version of this "license" will become a reality. as corporations (and some individuals) continue to try and own every small aspect of existence, what chance do we have?

  • Universities to 'wink-out'?? No way! (Score:3)

    by molo ( 94384 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:52AM (#217556) Journal
    Enrollment has not dropped. In fact, it has increased 14% between 1990 and 1999.

    Source: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/00trends/EA1.pdf (page 25)
  • But before the university can sell the seeds to farmers, it must get clearance from holders of as many as 34 patents, said Dr. Ana Sittenfeld, an associate professor there.

    One possible solution to this is the creation of a rights clearinghouse much like BMI [bmi.com] or ASCAP [ascap.com] for music publishing rights, combined with a compulsory licensing scheme with set royalty rates.

    This is basically the solution that music publishers and music licensees came up with years ago (or that the government came up with for them) to solve a similar problem with music licenses. Similar schemes are being proposed for AIDS drugs and other medicines [google.com] and for online music [slashdot.org].

    Of course this doesn't solve the myriad other problems associated with GM foods and restrictive patents, but it's a start.

  • Someone already mentioned Monsanto v. Schmeiser. I'll just add that genes can be transmitted from species to species with germ and virii-interactions [geneticengineering.org]. So basically, a "patented gene" can be copied from one field to another in lots of different (but statistically less probable) ways. This is just another corporate (silly humans) attempt to restrain freedom of information, which is The underlying principle of development in our universe.

    - Steeltoe
  • The problem you describe is even more contaminating [geneticengineering.org] than just breeding. Groups of genes can be transmitted between bacteria, virii and hosts in lots of different ways. However, that nature itself is playing with genetic experiments out in the wild IS reassuring. Because maybe it's not that bad, even though our activities WILL alter nature in more profound ways than ever?

    The largest problem is perhaps that we alter the course of evolution so that some species get totally unbalanced. This will probably strike back at agriculture itself, more land will be useless and more trees need to be cut down. For example, the genes for super-growth and pesticide-resistance could just as well be transmitted to non-crop plants.

    - Steeltoe
  • Wrong!!
    When you drink absynthe, you immediatly notice the ill effects, as they are what makes this liquor really different.
    I drank it once without knowing what it was and the state it put me in had nothing to do with "regular" alcohol. And for this exact reason, although it was a really pleasant effect, I never drank it again.
    But you're even wronger if you think that the fight against gmo is based on the fear they could induce cancer or such.
    The concern is that they could have side effects on the ENVIRONMENT as a whole.
    Also I've heard many people saying that ecological farming is about better food.
    Wrong, it's about healthier soil first. Healthier food is a consequence. Better food a matter of taste.
  • Linus was working for University of Helsinki while he was creating first Linux kernels. Do you really think that Linux would exist if he would have been doing CS research for some company?

    There are two kinds of research, basic research and more applied research. Academia does the former, which requires more abstract thinking and produces inventions that are profitable for society in the long-term. Applied research, which is more often corporate funded, produces innovations which turn quickly into profitable products.

    The governments fund the former so that the latter can grow from basic research's seeds. For the technological progress to go on both must exist.

  • Such concerns were heightened in January when two companies announced they had determined the genetic code of rice, years ahead of a government effort.

    "One thing people could argue is, How can a company own the most important food crop in the world?" said Dr. Rod A. Wing of Clemson University.

    Damn; which companies? I want to buy shares!

    P.S. here's the working address for those who don't know to replace the www with channel:
    http://channel.nytimes.com/2001/05/15/science/15 CR OP.html

  • Thus the Onion article this week: "New Technological Breakthrough To Fix Problems of Old Breakthrough" [theonion.com]. The timing of that and this discussion is fantastic... *grin*


    --Fesh

  • I've got to admit that it's companies like Monsanto that took my Radical Libertarianism (you know, "die government die! stabbity stabbity!", Libertarianism) and shattered it over it's kneecap. You would have to be a fool to give a company like this any more influence over the way the world is run.

  • The Killer Bee issue has allready shown what can happen when an artificially created species escapes into the enviroment.

    The so-called "killer bees" (African honeybees, actually) were not artificially created. They're native to Africa, but were accidentally introduced into South America.

    And they're not actually a danger to plants. They pollenate just the same as any other bee.

    The only real impact they have on the economy is that they're eventually going to be the replacement for the honeybees we use now in the US, and for a very good reason. There's a mite called the Varroa Mite which infests honeybees and basically kills them. The African honeybees have a much higher resistance to the mites than the European honeybees which US apiculturists use now.

    The only problem is that the African honeybees don't form very large hives and don't seem to build up large stores of honey. It's an obvious adaptation to a warmer climate and much shorter winters, but makes them less-than-optimal for honey production.

    That little difficulty is solveable. I imagine 10000 years ago some caveman was whining about releasing genetically-modified chickens into the environment too.

  • Regardless of your use of boldface type, you offer no proof of any of these assertions. As others have pointed out, genetic modification has been going on for over one hundred years and no planet shattering catastrophes have occurred. Do you have any examples (besides your killer bee one which is shown below to be flawed) of genetic modification leading to environmental damage? Do they outweigh the benefits that GM has brought?
  • Sorry, but you are the one who is wrong. The intention of importing the bees was to get them to mate with american honey bees to make a new bee that was tame and produced more honey. The experement showed that they cannot do that because the non-sterile pure-african bee eggs hatch before the cross american-african bee eggs. The non-sterile african bees then take control of the nest and the pure-american and cross american-african bee that have not yet hatched are destroyed. The colony swarms and you are left with a pure-african strain.

    Let me wrap it up: Successful breeding between african and american bees have never occurred, in fact it is nearly impossible for it to occur! The african bees that we have in this country are exactly the same as the ones in africa. They are a natural species and nothing that "Man" did (besides importing them onto a continent that didn't have them before).
  • People have been banging rocks together
    for thousands of years. Why should I be
    concerned when they bang together subcritical
    masses of plutonium?
  • You are mistaken. Relative to the volume
    of revenue, or relative to the market cap,
    research spending by u.s. corporations
    is less than half what it was
    in 1970.
  • I believe someone else already holds the patent on the genetic structures of worms.
  • First I think we should start the usual way with 'illegal' material, namely dedicate aheckuvalot of web space to it!
    www.g3n3ticf00ds3q3ncz.com, www.illegalGFS.net and www.wareZf00d.tv are probably happening as you read this.

    After this initial blizzard of downloading/warezing genetic food sequences, someone will probably recognize the fact that this stuff is too hard to find, and write their own GFS sharing program, Foodster, and then they'll probably get sued. Then the food sequences will misstakenly be submitted as evidence, and then they will be public record. And we'll all live happily ever after.
    /Smuffe
  • It was my belif that you could only patent INVENTIONS, no jsut thing you find. Imagine if newton patented the use of his laws, and we all had to pay royalties for moving. Bit extremee but patneting GENES, they didn't MAKE THEM, they jsut found them, its insane. They shoudl be able to atent particualr modified plants they make, but the wholesale patneting of individual genes that might be useful is jsut plain wrong, its as bad as domain name squatting if notworse, because you can still have a company wihtout the domain....

  • .... created with the more traditional genetic modification methods - 'breeding' and 'hybridization'.

    You're essentially trusting your health to the tender mercies of phage viruses and plant and animal chemical defenses, the end product of a no-holds-barred chemical weapons war which has raged unchecked over the surface of our planet for billions of years.

    If you really want to protect yourself ( including the environment in which you have parity with the critters' predatory abilities ), then militate against unrestricted air and ship travel - demand that they get decontaminated as if they were returning from another biologically active planet. All humans have done is defeat space-separation barriers between these smaller areas of battle, precipitating tests of their particular biochem technologies on novel ecosystems.

    Oh, and we've insisted that these nanowarriors travel by chewing our way willy-nilly through wild areas without any bio-reconnaissance. Want some kudzu with your walking catfish? Dig in before the West Nile Virus or Brazilian purpuric fever get you.

    Bon appetit, and here's to absinthe friends.

  • ...unless you can keep DNA itself out of your taco shells?

    Little can stop whoever wants to from reading the DNA code in product X, replicating it, and reverse-engineering it. Monsanto can't pull a M$ by embracing and extending the encoding (ACGT) or protocol (chromosomes) and making them 'incompatible'. And the reverse engineers can take out the jellyfish-glow or whatever components make the stuff identifiable from a distance, thus no Colombian spray-plane crop-clobbering is really feasible.

    What are the implications of competition using an extensible language which results in source that will always stay open in every product? Even denaturing will have limited use, since the proteins we want would likewise get offed in many cases.

  • This post should be rated as -1 Troll. Starvation = food distribution and economic problems. It's != lack of food. And, I weigh 135 pounds and work 6 days a week thank you very much Mr. Ignoramous
  • There are groups in the USDA, in Universities, etc. who work specifically to keep seed samples of the original species so that they are not lost.

    Oh, that comforts me (not). Why don't we just use those "original species" in the first place? The parent to your post is right - no one is looking at the "playing God is going to FUBAR our veggies" factor.

    Why are we so set on genetically modifiying our veggies in the first place?

    It has NO benefit to humans, and a HUGE potential to fsck things up with our [health|crops|economy]. Oh wait, I forgot, corporations can make more money... never mind, forget I was even here!
  • Rural Advancement Foundation International [rafi.org] has a lot of information on this subject. They logiclly and coherently address the issues that patenting biologicals has for third world farmers and the small farmer in general.
  • Thanks for the info that I just have to put "channel" in front of my urls. You may be goatse.cx troll, but that added another automated change to websites I view... THANKS!
  • If patent law was reined in, then universities would again be the centers of research, since university people are not motivated solely by profit - they also want to publish.
    ___
  • I don't see why it matters if someone has a patent on an item. So long as the next guy (University) can prove that they did not use that persons processes knowingly to reproduce the effect.

    To that end, patents should be for unique items/processes. When the end result of said patent is reproduced through other means, that patent should be nullified.

    Can you imagine it if some neanderthal had managed to patent the wheel?

    UGGTHUG--"Me Make Round Thingy!"
    ATHGAR--"Me Want Round Thingy!"
    UGGTHUG--"I are Patent. You No Have Unless Pay UGGTHUG!"
    ATHGAR--"Me Make Round Thingy Then. No Pay UGGTHUG!"
    UGGTHUG--"ATHGAR Can No Make Round Thingy with UGGTHUG Patent!"
    ATHGAR--"Where This Patent?"
    UGGTHUG--Points to head
    Insert repeated sounds of club whacking and screaming here.

    krystal_blade

  • Attn Moderators...
  • Actually a uncle of mine owns a lake. The lake lost water recently and the surrounding properties got larger because of this.

    He asked the property owners to compensate him. Since they refused he took them to court and - won.

    The point is that they do have a benefit from the shrinking lake - even if they didnt ask for it.

    Whether or not genetically modified crops are actually a benefit remains to be seen.
  • When the rights to certain food belongs to the Corporate fat cats - there is something very wrong with the world.

    It is all morally iniquitous - Why do governments let them get away with it?

    WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] - see statement from Secretary Don 'Littlechick' Evans, US DoC (Department of Chickens). It is about the authorities totally disrespect of your rights - to stop you using the words you wish on the Internet.
  • There must be a middle here. There must be
    limiting factors here, on how and why compnay
    should be able to use patents as evidence in
    court. If they use it to extort people out of
    the money, or in dire days like epidemic where
    90% of US are threatened by out of the control
    virus, and one company holds a patents and they
    want to sell it @ 100$ a pill, should this happen?
    In simple case there are 2 sides to the coin,
    so you can look at both. Here there are billions,
    and each worth considering. Main thing is to be
    satisfactory for both sides of conflict.
    If one benefits greatly, and other sufferes
    horribly system is tilted and there will be
    force there to balance it out. Angry one perhaps.
    Company may donate A+ enriched rice to
    third world, but that would not solve problems
    of those countries either... LOOK, you need fats
    to digest A+, otherwise this gold rice worth
    just as much as cheap white rice. You can discuss
    issue when all sides of problem and all possible
    solution are presented. You can sway from one side
    to the other, but that will not make all parties
    satisfied. Satisfied as in minimally rewarded
    after balance is reached. Of course there can
    be greater rewards for each. But there should be
    minimal level or agreement. If it cannot be
    reached, someone like government should decide,
    wether people starve, and logical business system
    is preserved or the reverse.

    So you all are wrong. Patent system is abused by
    lawyers. Lawyers will abuse anything to win their
    cases, as long as it is of little or no penalty to
    them. I am not promoter of pass the blame, but
    legal sysem shall be restricted from using
    certain tools like patent law in some cases.

    This is your life, this is your world, TAKE SOME RESONSIBILITY!
  • Hey, no offense, but that drugco you worked for could spend 50% more on R&D, charge 50% less for its drugs, and realize substantially more profit, if it would simply cut marketing expenditures by roughly 50% (preferably more). Doesn't it sicken anyone else that americans have to pay twice as much for their celecoxib as canadians pay, for the dubious benefit of being able to watch more celebrex commercials on tv? And why in the fuck are they marketing Rx drugs direct to the public? At the same time they're brainwashing tv ad viewers to request their drug by name, they're ramping up their campaign to turn physicians into nothing more than lab-coat-and-stethescope pill pushers. People now ask their doctors for celebrex like they're asking their dealers for White Rhino. Thanks to the efforts of these drugcos, "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" has been reduced to "Dr. Grinn, Pill Pimp." Fucking profit monger subhuman drugco overlords really make me wanna McVeigh every headquarters and lab they own. last comment not serious. no harm to vile drugco overlords intended. this disclaimer may be harmful or fatal if swallowed.
  • in Australia with GM canola [tripod.com] crops, being grown for commercial [theage.com.au], not scientific use. These crops are being grown in "secret" locations, and may be polluting the neighbourhood crops (with windblown pollen), but since their locations are not public, we won't really know. This has really pissed off anti-GM and organic crop growers, who feel that their business is at risk.

    The island state of Tasmania here would like to be a GM free zone, which if it can be enforced legally, would provide them with a lot of protection, as they are not close to many landmasses.

    There has also been dumping [theage.com.au] of a GM crop into a commercial rubbish tip.

  • Seed Savers around the world... (Score:5)

    by Technodummy ( 204943 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @08:06AM (#217587)
    There's the Seed Savers Exchange [seedsavers.org] (SSE) based in Iowa, America and founded in 1975. They are particularly interested in "heirloom" seeds. You can become a member of Seed Savers and that gets you a bunch of publications every year.

    This group alos has an organised arm called the Flower and Herb Exchange (FHE), which you can also purchase a membership for.

    SSE has a Heritage Farm, a living historical museum of plan varieties. SSE also has a commercial store in Wisonsin, America.

    Then there's Seed Savers Network [seedsavers.net] (SSN) based in Byron Bay, Australia and founded in 1986. Their goal is to "preserve the diversity of our cultural plants". They have subscriptions of various kinds and have newsletters, seed exchange, a seed bank, workshops and they publish a handbook.

    The SSN is setting up networks in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, The Caribbean and Cambodia. They also assisted the Southern African Seed Network (SASN) in setting up in Zimbabwe.

    Then there's the Irish Seed Savers Association [catalase.com] (ISSA), whose website is under construction. They are "dedicated to the location and preservation of traditional varieties of fruit, grain and vegetables".

    The Seed Savers Aotearoa New Zealand [seedsavers.org.nz] (SSANZ), based in New Zealand and probably founded in the year 2000. Their goal is to "facilitate the sharing of information and resources between regional seed saving groups"

    Seeds of Change [yahoo.com] (SOC) founded around 1989 in Sante Fe, New Mexico. SOC "is committed to improving the lives of this and future generations by preserving biodiversity and promoting the use of sustainable organic agricultural practices". They have a commercial store hosted at Yahoo, and a research arm close to Santa Fe. Their website has a lot of different sections and seems to be aimed at the average consumer.

    Comox Valley Growers & Seed Savers [cvseeds.bc.ca] (CVGSS), based in British Columbia, Canada. Their mission is "Conserve and preserve our plant heritage and diversity by encouraging participation in growing heritage and non-hybrid food crops and other plants". They have mail-order membership.

    The Native Seed Savers Network [ga.org.au] (NSSN) is a Greening Australia [ga.org.au] project, based in New South Wales, Australia. Started in 1996, "the need for more detail on the appropriate use and management of dwindling areas of locally-native seed resources in the Sydney Basin prompted the development of this community-based native seed trading network"

    Primal Seeds [primalseeds.org] aims to:
    - Inform and inspire people to take the protection of biodiversity and the creation of food security into their own hands.
    - Support grassroots movements around the world who challenge agribusiness and promote food production based on diversity and community.
    - Act as an information network.
    - Promote seed saving, seed swaping, heritage, open-pollinated, rare, local and illegal seeds.
    - Oppose the encroaching model of agriculture based on commodification, which leads to biotechnology, biopiracy, mass mechanisation, heavy chemical inputs and threatens the livelihood of the worlds farmers

    Some other resources are:
    Seeds of Texas' Vegetable Seed-Savers Handbook [colorado.edu]
    Seed Savers Around The World [ozemail.com.au]



  • Is this the end of the world? No. If scientists are having trouble publishing their research to a rapt audience (journal readers), then they can simply seek a new environment (corporation) where they can publish their research to an equally important and rapt audience (fellow corporate team members). They will still have all the benefits of publishing (social status, royalties) but without the legal hassle (corporations protect their own) and for significantly greater salaries (let's face it, universities can't afford to pay good salaries anymore).

    If you were a scientist, you'd know better than this, and sorry, it doesn't work that way.

    The difference between working as an academic researcher vs. a corporate researcher is academic freedom. Furthermore, your predicted corporatization of all research is more likely to slow down scientific advancement. Directly, this slow down will happen by hindering the sharing of work with others (thus stiffling outside innovation) and by ending peer review (thus quality suffers). It will also happen indirectly by limiting the ability of students studying an advanced science to have access to the latest work in the field. Finally, in its ultimate form, corporate research creates a highly decentralized atmosphere for discovering scientific advancements and inovations which in turn fosters a corporate version of "the ivory tower." When that occurs, a single company can easily get a lock on controlling an area of "scientific advancement." Now when would a slashdoter want this? (Are you a troll or something?!)

    Academic freedom means that as an academic researcher, you pursue topics that you are interested in and then you share your results with the world-wide academic community in your field (and occasionally related fields). You meet with other scientists doing work in your area or in areas that can benefit from your work. Together as a large group you insire each other and move the field forward. This sharing is motivated directly by your desire for (among other things) job advancement as your raises, tenure, grants, etc. depends mostly on your ability to produce good quality research and publish (share!) it with the academic community at large.

    As a corporate researcher, your situation depends on the business plan of your company w.r.t. research and innovation. If your company, like many who hire PhDs for research (particularlly in biotech and also in some fields of comp sci), regards patents as the important measure of your advancement, the atmosphere changes completely. You're motivation (and possibly even your ability) to publish your work in a timely fashion plummets and you cease to share your findings with the greater community of research scientist. This means that (1) the world wide research community no longer knows what you are doing and (2) your work stops being peer reviewed by that community. (I can tell you from a decade of personal experience that when I have been involved in something with commercial potential, we have stopped or watered down our publications.)

    The first thing -- lack of community-wide knowledge about your work -- is a major problem for the overall advancement of science. This causes scientific advancement to slow down. If other scientists do not find out about your work and understand your work, then they won't be (a) competitively inspired to do one better, (b) experimentally inspired to reproduce your results to show validity, or (c) think of new ways in which your work and their work fit together into a greater whole. Even worse, students who are training to become tomorrow's scientists are not able to read about the work, study it, and thus give themselves a leg-up to stand on the shoulders of giants.

    The second problem -- lack of peer review -- is critical for the advancement of quality work in science. In academia, you share your findings by publishing and in order to be published, your work must be peer reviewed -- reviewed by a panel of peers who don't work directly with you.

    Peer review is typically pretty tough and this is a good thing. You, as a scientist, receive valuable critique on your work and suggestions for improvement. Often you must implement those improvements before your work is published. This is a good thing. Why? Without peer review scientists tend to communicate only with their coworkers -- the few other scientists in their area at their home institution. A sort of unchallenge intellectual inbreeding occurs because you all work together on the same project or on intertangled projects. Outsiders are very important for challenging the validity of your work, inspiring new ideas, and pointing out mistaken assuptions (among other things).

    As an aside, I am quite sure that our fellow slashdot readers are extremely capable of finding parallels between my discussion of scientific research and the software industry regarding corporate monopoly, suppression of innovation, and the marketting of outdated memes as "the hot new thing." ...

    As enrollment has dropped and employment opportunities that do not require degrees have grown, the university experience is about to wink out.
    What planet are you on? Let me guess: you aren't on university planning commities, working in the dean's or provost's office, nor are you even reading the NYTimes.

    College applications for admissions are going through the roof. Major universities are trying to figure out how in heck they can properly service and educate all of the people who want take college classes. Some of the U Cal and U Virginia campuses (among others) are looking into distance education as a possible solution. Many departments with popular majors, such as computer science, are finding themselves overrun with way more students than they can handle. Many of these departments can't hire new faculty fast enough. And although the pay is not quite as good as corporate, the pay is very competative. ...And if you have a hot idea, you rather than the corporate entity that owns your brain will profit from it.

    Oh, and where are all of these students coming from? Well, the world today requires skilled, educated workers. I don't think the university experience is going to "wink out."

    -The Weasel

    Former researcher in academica biotech-gone-corporate

    Current research in computer graphics, animation, and virtual environments

  • I'd bet that encoding something in DNA constitutes an "encryption device" under the DMCA.

    There needs to be a very dramatic sea change in opinion in this country to take on the monied interests behind this one.

    Bryguy
  • To be honest I thought the last sentance was your sig and didn't read it. Can't take my comment back though which sucks cause re-read your comment and laughed (at your comment and my fsck-up) Oh well. Sorry about that. :-(


    Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
  • [Scathing Sarcasm]
    Oh yeah! Great counter argument! You have proved conclusively that a world with coporate research is a bad thing(tm).
    [End Scathing Sarcasm]


    Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
  • Is to genetically encrypt food. I can see it now, on the packaging of groceries... "This food only digestable if you are running MS Stomach v3.8.011 or higher."

  • The Seed Savers Exchange [seedsavers.org]is one group that is devoted to the exchange of non-patented seed by hobbyists. They have a mission of preserving biodiversity in fruits and vegetables and helping members trade resources. Last years catalog had 11,000 varieties of non-patented seed for swap. The Flower and Herb Exchange is a related group for flower and herb seed (they share web resources with seedsavers.org). There is a membership fee to cover administrative costs - its free as in freedom, not free as in beer.
  • It's going on right now. [percyschmeiser.com] Worse yet, it's international, so whoever among you out there is paranoid that corporations are trying to control the world, well, you're right.
  • The critical point here was that the research, in this case, was being funded by commercial strawberry growers. The patents that are already in place would prevent them from deriving profit from their research investment so they said, 'Why Bother?'.

    I think the issue is much bigger than that though. Since this kind of research is built on top of previous (possibly patented) research in the field, there comes a point where all future research might cease, because enything they would achieve would be a derivitive of patented rearlier research results. This is a slippery slope. There needs to be much more stringent requirements implemented in the USPTO to prevent the issuance of patents for inappropriately broad (results of) areas of this type of research

    --CTH

    --
  • Now, isn't this a mass-media produced knee-jerk reaction? What about the fact that people have been genetically modifying plants for hundreds, if not thousands of years? How is this so different? Here's a little fact: the original 'corn' plant (found in the wild) has a single kernel on it. Think about that one.

  • Re:IP laws do play some good roles... (Score:3)

    by ConsumedByTV ( 243497 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:00AM (#217597) Homepage
    Your assuming that Monsanto (or any other GMO) comapany is safe to eat in the first place. What makes you think the integrity, quality, and authenticity is better from using one of them?

    I hate to break it to you but all gmo food is bad because we are unsure. Eat real food (tm)


    The Lottery:
  • Or Heirloom cultivars. It's what organic farmers rely on; many home gardeners as well. At this point in time, seed saving is a radical act! In fact, growing your own food and generating your own electricity are becoming some of the most radical actions one can perform.
  • And how many corporations do pure, theoretical, research? Pure mathematics, theoretical physics, etc.? Not too many I believe. And I don't think they can patent such results, even in the US. (But once they want to do such research, I'm sure they will be able. Then you can't move a finger without infringing on someone's patent.) Now, it is all about applications and short-term research (and profits) that most corporations are interested in.
  • One more case how strict patent hurts US. Americans cannot benefit from the result of the research to improve food production, while third world countries where US patent law doesn't apply could take advantage of it.

    Richard Stallment think [itworld.com] he can live with 3 or 5-year patent. Shorter patent period might really help solving the problems.
  • And then using that expensive technology to improve their high tech farms! With all their lush farm land! That's why they never have famines! Give me a break. I'm sorry that's not my point. There's no need to act so jumpy on it.

    3rd world countries don't necessary imply countries with famines. I was going to say 'other countries where US patent law doesn't apply'. You can replace '3rd world countries' to anything else you like.
  • You go girl... protect that fucking karma...

    It's sooo important to me. I got discount in Walmart; cops will not charge me for speeding; it increases the odds of getting chicks in party; and it looks really good in my CV.

    How can one live with low karma?....Oops, sorry I didn't mean to offend you....

    j/k...anyway, only morons would get offended by jokes.
  • Is to get inovations out in the public so that they can be studied... But since the whole patent system has been so twisted and corrupted over the years from what is written into the Constitution, I'm becoming of the opinion that they are no longer of any benefit to society.

    "But corporations will no longer have any reason to fun research" opponents will say.

    Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.

    And if patents don't actually make the invention any more available to the public (such as the patented "golden rice" that could feed the starving third world countries), what the hell good is their research anyway?

    Maybe if that corporation made it possible for more people not to starve by releasing that IP, perhaps those people will later be able to BUY more of their other products...

    Since we are subsidizing by force of government, corporate monopolies by granting patents, with little or no discernable benefits, then, I argue, patents should be abolished.

  • Re:Not as bad as you'd think (Score:3)

    by eXtro ( 258933 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @03:27AM (#217610) Homepage
    In principle it is really bad. I'm not against corporate research, but I am against the bullying that will go with it. Look at the Monsanto corporation. First put things in a bit of perspective.

    Imagine you're in your back yard, its a beautiful day. Your parents taught you that fences build good neighbours so your yard is fenced in. You are on friendly terms with your neighbours though. It so happens that one of your neighbours has an apple tree. It's in their yard but when the wind blows just right apples blow into your yard. You don't mind at all (though you wouldn't mind if the wind blew in another direction during the fall) because these are good apples, your favourite variety in fact. Usually you pick them up and eat them. At some time you miss an apple though. The apple and the seeds in it do what a half billion years of evolutionary programming has taught it: It grows and it flourishes. Now you've got an apple tree in your backyard, you didn't plant it, you didn't steal the seeds but still its there. Your neighbour doesn't care and you don't mind either. These apples are good eating.

    Now for a more dystopian take consider the Monsanto corporation and their genetically modified canola seeds. A farmer in Canada grows 'natural' canola, he doesn't believe the glossies put out by Monsanto. Neighbouring farms don't feel the same way though, so they purchase Monsanto's genetically modified seeds. These seeds have been modified at the genetic level to resist a fairly powerful form of herbicide which it so happens Monsanto sells. The herbicide in question goes by the trade name of Roundup, and the seeds are referred to as Roundup Ready.

    Similar to your story of the apple the winds blow and some of these genetically modified seeds find their way onto the farmers land. Just like the apple they obey a half billion years of evolution and germinate. From the farmers perspective these seeds and the plants they produce are a contaminant. This farmer purposely chooses to sell unmodified canola. This contaminant represents the intellectual property of Monsanto however and from Monsanto's financially fueled perspective they see this as the theft of their property. They take the farmer to court over it. Despite the fact that the farmer never physically stole the seeds (they invaded his property on the winds) nor did he want them he loses the law suit. He's charged with the standard Monsanto fee per acre, punitive damages and to rub a little salt in the wound the only way he can determine how much of this contaminant is in his crop is to use Roundup - which will kill his crop but leave the genetically modified crop surviving.

    This same company, Monsanto, also sells other variants of seeds (Cotton I believe) who's plants have been linked to an increased incidence of cancer.

    I'm not against research, nor am I against genetically modified crops. We've been modifying the genes of crops and animals for millenia already through more standard needs. What I am against is runaway corporations that can buy whatever legislation or legal outcome they'd like.

  • ...and that is to immediately and globally engage in mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing of all copyrighted and patented materials. This is the only way we are going to prevent the powers that be from enacting increasingly Big Brother-type measures to ensure that their so-called intellectual property is not stolen. We must not allow this to happen. We must weaken them where it hurts the most, their pocket book. Otherwise our freedom is history.

    The powers that be got their power and wealth from our money and our work. We allowed them to be what they are. Resist all Orwellian systems that take away your liberty a little bit at a time, one little law at a time. We can take it back. The internet is our weapon. Refuse to pay for any copyrighted music, software, patents, ideas, etc...

    Copy it all and distribute it all! Reclaim your liberty!

  • Pop quiz: What is Genetic contamination? (Score:4)

    by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @03:06AM (#217616)
    What worries me about these GM crops is Genetic contamination. Today corporations are working on things like tobacco plants and Tomatoes with genes, in some cases even human genes added to produce medicine.

    What worries me is:
    1. What seems to be a complete lack control over what these corporations do. The US tobacco firms even genetically modified their tobacco to contain twice the normal amount of Nicotine and succeeded in marketing the resulting crop behind the back of the US Govt.
    2. What will happen if these plants who in some cases will contain substances harmful to animals and humans begin to interbreed with wild plants and find their way into foodcrops. I see it as a problem if it was discovered that edable tomatoes had inadvertantly been crossed with say, insulin producing tomatoes.


    The effect of genemodifying crops goes way beyond health issues for humans and copy and patent rights. It also has implications in the area of Genetic Contamination of wild plants and animals and nobody seems to care . The Killer Bee issue has allready shown what can happen when an artificially created species escapes into the enviroment. These bees have more of less exterminated large highly specialized bee species in the Rainforests of south and central America. This is a partickularly serious concern since the loss of these native bees may cause the extinction of numerous species of trees an other plants that rely exclusively on their specialized bees for pollenation. Shure the effectss will not be apparent for a few decades so using G.W. Bush logic we will not have to worry about them. Long term thinking BAD!!! Short term thinking and greed GOOOOOD!!! But "Hear no evil see no evil" will not make these issues go away. These genetic problems will still emerge and later Generations, stuck with genetically contaminated foodcrops and wild geene-pools, will curse us for ignoring them.

    Large scale genetic modification of Plants and animals is dangerous and we have no way of knowing what problems an uncontrolled genetic goldrush will cause in nature. Genetic modifications of any kind should be striclty controlled by the state and not by corporoations. Genetic contamination and the escape of genetically modified plants and animals into wild populations is impossible to reverse.
  • If George Washington Carver were alive today, he'd be litigated into anonymity. Perhaps we should start giving away Nobel prizes for greed, now that science for the good of mankind has been effectively abolished.

  • Quite as bad as you'd think (Score:3)

    by linca ( 314351 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:17AM (#217619)

    There /is/ a major difference between government subsidised research, in universities or public institutions, and corporate research.

    A private company usually won't engage in long term research (there are some exception, like Bell Labs, but they are few), because the stockholders, wanting their money back as fast as possible, aren't interested in the long-term performance of the company they hold. Which also means that some subjects will never be researched (such as the malaria, which only kills a few tens of millions each year...)

    Also, the hierachised model of private companies tend not to be adapted to the needs of research : they'd rather focus on narrow, but close to be sellable, fields, rather that search for everything until they stumble on something good. An example of this kind of narrow vision by executives would be Xerox, and its PARC laboratories.

    And, lastly, the freedom needed to be doing good research is hard to find in private companies : a researcher has its work overlooked every three months, whereas in France for a CNRS researches, it is only every other year...

  • One more case how strict patent hurts US. Americans cannot benefit from the result of the research to improve food production, while third world countries where US patent law doesn't apply could take advantage of it. Yeah, all those damn 3rd world countries studying the genetic structures of food! And then using that expensive technology to improve their high tech farms! With all their lush farm land! That's why they never have famines!

    Give me a break.

  • Actually there was an article on /. about this some time ago : http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/30/146227.shtml [slashdot.org]

    seems like that answers your question.


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