
PepsiCo sues Indian farmers for growing trademarked potatoes - foolrush
https://thehill.com/policy/international/440773-pepsico-sues-indian-farmers-for-growing-trademarked-potatoes
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merricksb
Discussed 1-2 days ago (104 | 61 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19750014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19750014)

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antpls
What does "trademarked potatoes" mean ? (GMO ?)

I'm emotionally on the side of the Indian farmers.

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chikei
Registered new variety of potato. PepsiCo invoke section 64 of this act
[https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1909/1/200153.p...](https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1909/1/200153.pdf)
while farmers counter with section 39.

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lolc
Thanks for the reference! I was wondering how this is possible. So looks like
it is actually possible to get a trademark on a plant. How any country would
want to agree to this is beyond me. Article 64:

64\. Infringement.—Subject to the provisions of this Act, a right established
under this Act is infringed by aperson— (a) who, not being the breeder of a
variety registeredunder this Act or a registeredagent orregisteredlicensee of
that variety, sells, exports, imports or produces such variety without
thepermission of its breeder or within thescope of a registeredlicence or
registeredagencywithout permission of the registeredlicensee or
registeredagent, as the case may be; (b) who uses, sells, exports, imports or
produces any other variety giving such variety, thedenomination identical with
or deceptively similar to the denomination of a variety registeredunder this
Act in such manner as to cause confusion in themind or general people
inidentifying such variety so registered.

There do seem to be protections in article 39. With that limitation the whole
thing does sound a lot more benign. Like they could just use a new name for
the variety:

(iv) a farmer shall be deemed to be entitled to save, use, sowresow, exchange,
share or sell his farmproduce including seed of a variety protected under this
Act in the same manner as he wasentitled before the coming into force of this
Act:Provided that the farmer shall not be entitled to sell branded seed of a
variety protected underthis Act.

Explanation.—For the purpose of clause (iv),“branded seed”means any seed put
in a package orany other container and labelled in a manner indicating that
such seed is of a varietyprotected under this Act.

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eitland
This sounds weird. From the title I assumed it was something like putting
transparent logo stickers on apples and later remove then after the apple skin
color had been affected.

This however seems to be Pepsi assuming they "own" a variety of potatoes,
something that is against all biological sense.

I'll say ok to people owning a potato _brand_ , around here we have
Ringerikspotet which is a) a variety and b) has to be grown at Ringerike to be
sold under that name.

Same goes for Champagne.

But nobody sues anybody if they farm Champagne type grapes as long as they
don't say Champagne. Same goes for the potato mentioned above, you are free to
put it in the ground next spring.

I'd maybe stretch as far as saying if you come up with a new potato you
shouldn't be forced to sell live ones and if you maintain tight control and
only sold them as chips you could keep that potato to yourself.

But if someone finds a potato and grows it, no way I agree anybody should have
any right to sue.

Because if this was true monastries, farmers and gardeners would be the
wealthiest "companies" in the world.

(I know Monsanto is into this as well and I dislike them as well.)

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weberc2
Are you opposed to all kinds of intellectual property protections or just this
one domain? In particular, why should anyone put R&D into developing better
varieties of crops if their innovations aren’t protected? Or perhaps improving
crops (to be more drought resistant or to produce higher yields) doesn’t
strike you as important—if so, how do you suppose we produce the additional
food to sustain our growing population, especially in light of climate change
(reduced land, increased droughts and other causes of crop failure). I don’t
know about this particular case, but I wouldn’t rush to advocating for zero IP
protection for crop varieties.

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linuxftw
I'm against all kinds of IP. The government does not have a right to tell you
what you can do with your own property.

> In particular, why should anyone put R&D into developing better varieties of
> crops if their innovations aren’t protected?

Why should people write free software?

> if so, how do you suppose we produce the additional food to sustain our
> growing population

Population is nearing or below replacement in developed nations. We don't need
to produce more food, we need to stop exploiting developing countries so their
standards of living increase.

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rajekas
Not only do I support the continued "stealing," I hope there's a farmer's
campaign against Pepsi in India that leads to the company being banned as a
whole. They have no idea of the depths of anger emerging out of the ongoing
agrarian crisis.

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rdlecler1
Let’s be clear, farmers could grow any potato they want and these potatoes are
specifically designed for lays chip (loser moisture content for taste). This
isn’t a case where the seeds are providing special protection from pests and
disease that threaten a farmer’s livelihood. Pepsi wants to protect their R&D
investment and product. Because this invention is a special ingredient in
their food and they don’t want it in competing products. If you don’t think IP
isn’t important in innovation, VCs pass on investments all the time simply
because there’s no defensibility. That means great and important products are
never developed because there is no financial incentive.

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14
I never realized they(Pepeico) were using sacred potatoes they didn’t want
others to use. This is the first I have heard if it. I will support them also
and no longer buy any of their chips. Enjoy all your potatoes.

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protomyth
You might need to look at your food shelf and get rid of most of it. It is not
unusual for food producers to have specialized ingredients grown. Coors had
its own version of six row barley. Never mind some of the exclusive poultry
contracts.

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14
Pepsi

Mountain Dew

Lay's potato chips

Gatorade

Diet Pepsi

Tropicana beverages

7 Up (outside U.S.)

Doritos tortilla chips

Lipton teas (PepsiCo/Unilever partnership)

Quaker foods and snacks

Cheetos

Mirinda

Ruffles potato chips

Aquafina bottled water

Pepsi Max

Tostitos tortilla chips

Mist Twst

Fritos corn chips

Walkers potato crisps

This Wikipedia list of Pepsi companies. I do try be aware and do shop based on
my feeling. I no longer buy Post cereals after they went all cheap and changed
the ingredients. But Post cereals makes more then just cereals. I may not be
able to avoid the company entirely but I will do my best to avoid supporting
companies I don’t agree with. I am not even sure the farmers are right here
because if PepsiCo did engineer the potatoe sure they should be paid. But this
looks like the farmers obtained the seeds legally within the laws of their
country and now are getting in crap for it. I don’t know who is right IANAL.
But I do not think I want a world where plants are controlled. Not sure how
this is solved.

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protomyth
I'm saying that this is not limited to Pepsi. In fact, you are going to find
that a lot of companies do this because it is very helpful to their
consistency of product.

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carld
Trademarked potatoes, but not trademarked...

