6 ms·

Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court

43 points by mecha 13y ago

jessaustin 13y 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.
- mpyne 13y 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?
  - TallGuyShort 13y 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?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      What "unprecedented harm" are you referring to here?
      - TallGuyShort 13y ago
        Are you kidding? There have been a number of studies on hive collapse, organ failure and other problems that appear to implicate Monsanto that have been widely discussed on HN. To be clear I'm not saying that any one of these studies absolutely conclusively points a finger of blame on Monsanto - I'm saying that there is enough suspicion of harm that saying we hate them just because they are incorporated is an even more ridiculous accusation than any of the above.
        jacoblyles 13y ago
        This is the very definition of FUD.
        TallGuyShort 13y ago
        And if they weren't such aggressive lobbyists, I would agree with you. My original point was that they are much more deserving of close scrutiny at this point than any YC-backed company. Do you dispute that?
        jacoblyles 13y ago
        America has a strong environmentalist lobby that would like to kill GMO research and put agriculture back into the Stone Age. Monsanto needs a powerful lobbying arm for defensive purposes. A hostile government could hound them out of existence otherwise either through new legislation or through executive action by the EPA and USDA.
        tptacek 13y ago
        Organ failure from Roundup-Ready soy?
  - tptacek 13y 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).
    - axus 13y ago
      Does the supreme court ruling care whether Roundup was used? All I saw was that "copying" the seeds was not allowed, because they are patented.
      - Natsu 13y ago
        They discuss it at length to point out that he should have known he was doing something wrong, but it does not appear to be a requirement as such. They found that he was not protected by exhaustion and that he was creating new patented articles, so it's hard to see how they could come to a different conclusion even without that part. Of course, IANAL and you should get one if it's important to be sure of that.
      - jacoblyles 13y ago
        Yes. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700973
  - aplusbi 13y 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.
    - kvb 13y ago
      I read this often in these threads, but have never seen a citation to such a case. Could you provide one?
      - aplusbi 13y ago
        I got my information from the documentaries "The Future of Food" and "Food, Inc" both of which have an obvious bias. I'm having trouble tracking down any other citations at the moment. Here is a [again, biased] citation about Monsanto suing people for saving seeds, allegedly going so far as to forge documents: http://nelsonfarm.net/issue.htm http://nelsonfarm.net/issue.htm
  - jessaustin 13y 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.
    - jcampbell1 13y ago
      > Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup, Your information is extremely dated. The patent for Roundup expired over a decade ago, and in the last 5 years the market has been flooded with cheap chinese made Glyphosate.
      - hayksaakian 13y ago
        but isn't the main crux of the case the fact that monsanto changes roundup every year such that only the new strain soybeans is resistent to it? if roundup was readily copy-able, how could this be possible?
        jcampbell1 13y ago
  - wavefunction 13y 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.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      I would certainly agree that it is in Monsanto's best interests to ensure their seeds don't spread on their own, if only because the presumption of innocence that must attach to each and every single case they'd try to prosecute. I know that civil cases have an easier standard of proof but it would still have be difficult to prove every time that a farmer was trying to screw Monsanto over.
    - jacoblyles 13y ago
      Monsanto developed a mechanism to prevent its crops from spreading by causing them to produce sterile seeds, but it pledged not to use the technology under pressure from anti-corporatist groups[1][2]. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. [1]http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/terminator-seeds.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/terminator-seeds.asp... [2]http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2
- r00fus 13y 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 13y ago
    Why would they comment on a case that not only is not in front of them, but in another country?
    - r00fus 13y ago
      It's not that they would comment, but by constraining the case to what was presented (which they do not do sometimes - see judicial activism), the ruling isn't as broad as may be feared.
techtalsky 13y 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.
- jessaustin 13y 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.
tptacek 13y 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.
- jerrya 13y 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 13y 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.
    - kens 13y ago
indiefan 13y 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.
bsimpson 13y ago
The most ludicrous part of all of this is that you can patent biology.
- mbreese 13y ago
  This isn't natural biology... it's engineered biology. That's a big difference.
  - bsimpson 13y 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.
    - mbreese 13y ago
      They didn't make reproduction illegal. They confirmed that Monsanto's patent lets them restrict how you can use the products of reproduction (beans/seed). These beans wouldn't naturally exist if it weren't for Monsanto. It would be extremely difficult to produce a soy bean that didn't produce seeds... since that's the bean part. This is very different from the Myriad BRCA1 patent where they patented a naturally occurring mutation in humans. In Monsanto's case, they actually produced something that was novel - an herbicide resistant soy bean.
    - indiefan 13y ago
      What scares me is that you know they're working on doing precisely this, and eventually they will probably be successful.
jacoblyles 13y 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 13y ago
  There are lots of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Hi-Bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Hi-Bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Bayer_CropScience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Bayer_CropScience (Call that a sampling, I didn't try to do an exhaustive search)
yohui 13y 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_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_techno...
- jacoblyles 13y ago
  It sounds like the primary reason for the ban on this technology is that the green lobby doesn't like it.
jessaustin 13y ago
More background on Monsanto: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805 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.

43 points by mecha 13y 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.

mpyne 13y 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?
- TallGuyShort 13y 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?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    What "unprecedented harm" are you referring to here?
    - TallGuyShort 13y ago
      Are you kidding? There have been a number of studies on hive collapse, organ failure and other problems that appear to implicate Monsanto that have been widely discussed on HN. To be clear I'm not saying that any one of these studies absolutely conclusively points a finger of blame on Monsanto - I'm saying that there is enough suspicion of harm that saying we hate them just because they are incorporated is an even more ridiculous accusation than any of the above.
      - jacoblyles 13y ago
        This is the very definition of FUD.
        TallGuyShort 13y ago
        And if they weren't such aggressive lobbyists, I would agree with you. My original point was that they are much more deserving of close scrutiny at this point than any YC-backed company. Do you dispute that?
        jacoblyles 13y ago
        America has a strong environmentalist lobby that would like to kill GMO research and put agriculture back into the Stone Age. Monsanto needs a powerful lobbying arm for defensive purposes. A hostile government could hound them out of existence otherwise either through new legislation or through executive action by the EPA and USDA.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        Organ failure from Roundup-Ready soy?
- tptacek 13y 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).
  - axus 13y ago
    Does the supreme court ruling care whether Roundup was used? All I saw was that "copying" the seeds was not allowed, because they are patented.
    - Natsu 13y ago
      They discuss it at length to point out that he should have known he was doing something wrong, but it does not appear to be a requirement as such. They found that he was not protected by exhaustion and that he was creating new patented articles, so it's hard to see how they could come to a different conclusion even without that part. Of course, IANAL and you should get one if it's important to be sure of that.
    - jacoblyles 13y ago
      Yes. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700973
- aplusbi 13y 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.
  - kvb 13y ago
    I read this often in these threads, but have never seen a citation to such a case. Could you provide one?
    - aplusbi 13y ago
      I got my information from the documentaries "The Future of Food" and "Food, Inc" both of which have an obvious bias. I'm having trouble tracking down any other citations at the moment. Here is a [again, biased] citation about Monsanto suing people for saving seeds, allegedly going so far as to forge documents: http://nelsonfarm.net/issue.htm http://nelsonfarm.net/issue.htm
- jessaustin 13y 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.
  - jcampbell1 13y ago
    > Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup, Your information is extremely dated. The patent for Roundup expired over a decade ago, and in the last 5 years the market has been flooded with cheap chinese made Glyphosate.
    - hayksaakian 13y ago
      but isn't the main crux of the case the fact that monsanto changes roundup every year such that only the new strain soybeans is resistent to it? if roundup was readily copy-able, how could this be possible?
      - jcampbell1 13y ago
- wavefunction 13y 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.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    I would certainly agree that it is in Monsanto's best interests to ensure their seeds don't spread on their own, if only because the presumption of innocence that must attach to each and every single case they'd try to prosecute. I know that civil cases have an easier standard of proof but it would still have be difficult to prove every time that a farmer was trying to screw Monsanto over.
  - jacoblyles 13y ago
    Monsanto developed a mechanism to prevent its crops from spreading by causing them to produce sterile seeds, but it pledged not to use the technology under pressure from anti-corporatist groups[1][2]. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. [1]http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/terminator-seeds.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/terminator-seeds.asp... [2]http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2
r00fus 13y 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 13y ago
  Why would they comment on a case that not only is not in front of them, but in another country?
  - r00fus 13y ago
    It's not that they would comment, but by constraining the case to what was presented (which they do not do sometimes - see judicial activism), the ruling isn't as broad as may be feared.

techtalsky 13y 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.

jessaustin 13y 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.

tptacek 13y 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.

jerrya 13y 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 13y 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.
  - kens 13y ago

indiefan 13y 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.

bsimpson 13y ago

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

mbreese 13y ago
This isn't natural biology... it's engineered biology. That's a big difference.
- bsimpson 13y 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.
  - mbreese 13y ago
    They didn't make reproduction illegal. They confirmed that Monsanto's patent lets them restrict how you can use the products of reproduction (beans/seed). These beans wouldn't naturally exist if it weren't for Monsanto. It would be extremely difficult to produce a soy bean that didn't produce seeds... since that's the bean part. This is very different from the Myriad BRCA1 patent where they patented a naturally occurring mutation in humans. In Monsanto's case, they actually produced something that was novel - an herbicide resistant soy bean.
  - indiefan 13y ago
    What scares me is that you know they're working on doing precisely this, and eventually they will probably be successful.

jacoblyles 13y 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 13y ago
There are lots of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Hi-Bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Hi-Bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Bayer_CropScience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Bayer_CropScience (Call that a sampling, I didn't try to do an exhaustive search)

yohui 13y 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_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_techno...

jacoblyles 13y ago
It sounds like the primary reason for the ban on this technology is that the green lobby doesn't like it.

jessaustin 13y ago

More background on Monsanto: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805 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.