Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court

http://rt.com/usa/patented-monsanto-court-patent-210/

by mecha • 13 years ago

43 65 13 years ago

jessaustin4• 13 years ago

IANAL but it seems especially bad that the verdict was unanimous. I guess it really is time to shutter the USDA, because any pretense that this government supports the farmer, rather than the same corporate interests that all other agencies do, is demolished at this point.

mpyne5• 13 years ago

Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago? My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

I get that we're all supposed to hate Monsanto because they're a corporation (something which they apparently don't have in common with the YC-backed companies), but what's the incentive to develop "superior" seeds if the first farmer who buys them can farm them and resell them at a lower cost until the end of time?

Maybe we need a different type of IP protection for this kind of thing: If you're able to independently reproduce this patented gene on your own then by all means utilize it, otherwise buy from us. But I find it hard to find the farmer wholly sympathetic on this whole thing.

And after all, this decision makes its harder to introduce those supposedly-evil GMOs in our American farms, so this should really be considered a victory, amirite?

TallGuyShort6• 13 years ago

>> I get that we're all supposed to hate Monsanto because they're a corporation (something which they apparently don't have in common with the YC-backed companies)

Can you name any YC-backed companies whose products are widely suspected to be causing unprecedented harm to society (or at least have the potential to) but are getting increasing legal immunity? We also hate corporations that enforce patents in software because it's ridiculous to patent software - how about patenting genetic codes?

tptacek8• 13 years ago

The court record strongly suggests that farmers can acquire Monsanto seeds and treat them like normal crops; I've looked for cases where Monsanto sued someone that hadn't allegedly sprayed Roundup on their crops and came up blank (but would welcome a counterexample).

aplusbi2• 13 years ago

>Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago? My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

Monsanto is somewhat infamous for suing farmers for planting seeds from plants that were accidentally cross-pollinated with Monstanto crops. So to answer your question, you can't use non-Monsanto seeds if any of the farms around you are using Monsanto seeds.

jessaustin4• 13 years ago

Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago?

Well, they can't buy such seeds at the elevator like they could 100 years ago. And now they can't plant elevator seeds period, without paying the Monsanto tax. (I know that isn't the explicit text of the ruling, but it is certainly its result for the most marketable crops.)

My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

Yeah I'm sure his unicorn herd is thriving. If you actually have a family connection to agriculture, you know that outside a few sheltered crops like avocados, "family" farming has been steadily supplanted by corporate farming. I'm not against that per se, because competition, but my point was to impeach the oft-repeated lobbyists' saw that USDA is "for the farmers! [and their children!]"

what's the incentive to develop "superior" seeds if the first farmer who buys them can farm them and resell them at a lower cost until the end of time?

Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup, to which these seeds are a completely complementary good. If Monsanto were good at business rather than evil at business, they would increase the price of Roundup and give the seeds away. (That would still be bad for both the environment and agriculture, but it wouldn't be as bad.)

this decision makes its harder to introduce those supposedly-evil GMOs in our American farms

News flash from the mid-90s: GMO crops are here already, in fact in many areas most farmers use them; that's why you can't avoid them at the elevator.

wavefunction• 13 years ago

The main criticism that resonates with me is that protected genes like this case are kind of an anti-LGPL, turning naturally open systems into closed ones just by nature of life reproducing via airborne fertilization.

Now this wasn't a great test-case since the defendant was trying to specifically rip Monsanto off, but it is my opinion that it is Monsanto's responsibility to ensure their protected product doesn't spread on its own.

r00fus2• 13 years ago

The ruling punted the issue of blown seeds, it was specific to this case - that the farmer knew and exploited a loophole to get 2nd gen crops while still agreeing not to.

Now, I disagree with the decision, but only on ideological grounds. From a rights standpoint, this ruling won't really answer the question of the canadian farmer and wind-blown Monsanto seeds.

pionar• 13 years ago

Why would they comment on a case that not only is not in front of them, but in another country?

techtalsky• 13 years ago

Although many people hate to see Monsanto win, it seems clear that this case was well considered, and that the license was violated here. No one should be surprised that Monsanto won this one.

However, the passage of the Farmer Assurance Provision aka. "The Monsanto Protection Act" is a much more horrific legislative end-run around the will of the people.

jessaustin4• 13 years ago

the license was violated here

I can see this point. Contracts should be honored.

However, the string "patent" occurs 96 times in the ruling in question. ("licens" occurs eight times.) It is difficult to credit that this was a case about licenses rather than one about patents.

tptacek8• 13 years ago

Once again regarding this story: to understand what's happening here, it's very important that you understand that the farmer didn't just acquire Monsanto seeds, but also used glyphospate herbicides on the crops. The point of Monsanto's invention is that it survives Roundup; if you spray Roundup on normal crops, they die.

Most people who see this story play out seem to think that it implies a Monsanto seed could blow onto your field and then get you sued. But of course, if you didn't know you were planting Monsanto seeds, you wouldn't think to try to kill them with Roundup.

jerrya7• 13 years ago

Since I am not a lawyer and know nothing about patent law, I have no problem with what the farmer did, up until the point I read that he had intentionally signed other agreements with Monsanto, and that, I think, poisons his intentions.

Apart from that, I can revel in my ignorance that tells me that collecting grain from a common silo and spraying it with roundup is not much more a big deal than going to a river and panning for gold, or passing a list through a filter.

Or even was growing yogurt, and intentionally subjecting his cultures to "too cold temps" in order to evolve strains that would grow at lower temps.

josh2600• 13 years ago

Look I'm no proponent of Monsanto, but they do have a point here.

Roundup will kill all non-monsanto plants; they change the formula every year to make sure that you have to keep buying seeds. In this case, the farmer grabbed a ton of seeds, sprayed everything with roundup and kept only the seeds which survived; the seeds he knew to be from Monsanto.

I don't like the idea that Monsanto can go to your farm and throw seeds and suddenly you owe them money, but it seems like they might be in the right here. The farmer did go out of his way to pursue survivable seeds without paying Monsanto for the privilege.

This is different from Yogurt where you have some natural selection. He didn't introduce a chemical to the Yogurt with the intention of killing all non-chemically-protected strains.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

It's a short opinion, written in fairly plain English, and worth reading: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf.

The most salient points are on page 9-10:

"Still, Bowman has another seeds-are-special argument: that soybeans naturally “self-replicate or ‘sprout’ unless stored in a controlled manner,” and thus “it was the planted soybean, not Bowman” himself, that made replicas of Monsanto’s patented invention. Brief for Petitioner 42; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 14 (“[F]armers, when they plant seeds, they don’t exercise any control . . . over their crop” or “over the creative process”). But we think that blame-the-bean defense tough to credit. Bowman was not a passive observer of his soybeans’ multiplication; or put another way,the seeds he purchased (miraculous though they might be in other respects) did not spontaneously create eight successive soybean crops. As we have explained, supra at 2–3, Bowman devised and executed a novel way to harvest crops from Roundup Ready seeds without paying the usual premium. He purchased beans from a grain elevator anticipating that many would be Roundup Ready; applied a glyphosate-based herbicide in a way that culled any plants without the patented trait; and saved beans from the rest for the next season." (9)

"Our holding today is limited—addressing the situation before us, rather than every one involving a self replicating product. We recognize that such inventions are becoming ever more prevalent, complex, and diverse. In another case, the article’s self-replication might occur outside the purchaser’s control. Or it might be a necessary but incidental step in using the item for another purpose." (10)

"We need not address here whether or how the doctrine of patent exhaustion would apply in such circumstances. In the case at hand, Bowman planted Monsanto’s patented soybeans solely to make and market replicas of them, thus depriving the company of the reward patent law provides for the sale of each article." (10)

indiefan2• 13 years ago

I don't think modifying already self-replicating seeds should give you a right to dictate what happens with subsequent generations of those seeds. Any such agreements should be rendered invalid (like non-compete agreements in California).

I realize this is an issue with the laws themselves and probably not within the purview of the Supreme Court, but I was kind of hoping they'd step in and end the madness.

bsimpson2• 13 years ago

The most ludicrous part of all of this is that you can patent biology.

mbreese2• 13 years ago

This isn't natural biology... it's engineered biology. That's a big difference.

bsimpson2• 13 years ago

Then they should engineer it to be seedless too so they don't have this problem. I really can't believe we're living in a society where a corporation can successfully use the courts to make natural reproduction illegal.

jacoblyles6• 13 years ago

I'm concerned that one of the only companies working on the efficiency of food production has such bad PR. Is there anyone else inventing innovative crop technologies like Monsanto? For the future of the human species, I hope the anti-corporation types don't gather enough power to drive them into the ground before capable competitors pop up.

maxerickson• 13 years ago

There are lots of them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Hi-Bred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Bayer_CropScience

(Call that a sampling, I didn't try to do an exhaustive search)

yohui• 13 years ago

It seems to me that this whole legal struggle would have been unnecessary if Monsanto had not been pressured into abandoning genetic use restriction technology [1], aka "terminator genes".

I am aware though not fully acquainted with the concerns about "food security" in developing nations that led to the moratorium, but at least in developed nations, why favor the legal tactic of signing contracts that forbid replanting over the technological solution? They seem to accomplish the same end, after all. It also seems prudent, from an ecological perspective, to ensure that genetically modified plants cannot accidentally spread into the wild.

I cannot help but suspect at some level that the widespread fear of this technology is the result of successful scaremongering based on its unfortunate moniker ("terminator" or "suicide" seeds); it would be reassuring to learn of better reasons for the ban.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_techno...

jacoblyles6• 13 years ago

It sounds like the primary reason for the ban on this technology is that the green lobby doesn't like it.

jessaustin4• 13 years ago

More background on Monsanto:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto...

Those who concentrate on questions of narrow legality with respect to this organization are missing the forest for the trees. We have observed this system long enough to know what it does. The reason this system employs an army of lawyers and private investigators against the town of Pilot Grove (literally, the henchmen outnumber the population of the town!) is not because it seeks justice in fair proceedings. They kill the chicken to frighten the monkeys. It doesn't actually matter what a particular farmer has done when the Monsanto Man starts snooping around. The Beast must be fed, and until all American farmland is under the control of a single corporate operator that transfers all profits directly to Monsanto, the Beast will be on the hunt.

Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court

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