
Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court - mecha
http://rt.com/usa/patented-monsanto-court-patent-210/
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tptacek
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
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
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.

~~~
jerrya
Oh I'm sure I am probably in the legal wrong.

I think that if cable companies broadcast encrypted signals in through my
house, I should legally be able to decrypt them. (But I am pretty sure it is
currently illegal to do that.)

I think that if I find a scanner for cell phone conversations and find cell
phone conversations that are unencrypted, I should legally be able to listen
to them. (But I am pretty sure it is currently illegal to do that.)

I think that if an Apple employee leaves an iPhone 6 in a bar, I should
legally be able to break it apart. (But I am pretty sure it is currently
illegal to do that.)

It might be ethically wrong for me to do so, but it should be legal for me to
do so.

If Monsanto can't keep its products out of a community silo, and Farmer John
wants to go fishing for their seeds by spraying them all with a commonly
obtained chemical and seeing what survives, I think that should be legal too.

~~~
rmc
_I think that if I find a scanner for cell phone conversations and find cell
phone conversations that are unencrypted, I should legally be able to listen
to them. (But I am pretty sure it is currently illegal to do that.)_

No, I don't think that should be legal. Many places have data protection &
privacy laws. If you get access to private information, you can't do what you
want with it. I'm fine with that being the law and ethics.

~~~
jerrya
I think the airwaves are the public's airwaves. If you broadcast unencrypted
information through them, Joe Average Public should not get in trouble for
listening to them. But I'll go further to. I think my living room is mine. If
you send your encrypted information through it, I should be able to listen to
it.

I was born. I didn't sign any data protection & privacy law agreement. Things
that I can witness and observe in the privacy of my own home should be none of
yours or anyone else's business.

If that makes it hard for certain business models, I'm okay with that because
the country is intended for the use of its citizens, not its corporations.

~~~
rmc
_I didn't sign any data protection & privacy law agreement._

That is not how laws work. You consent is not required.

(Fun fact: There is some people who think that consent is required (and can be
withdrawn) for laws to apply to them. It's called "freemen-on-the-land". It's
like homeopathy but for laws. It's quite funny)

~~~
jerrya
I think you're missing the point.

Broadcasting your radio signals unencrypted means there is no privacy. Making
a law saying that it is private is like making a law the sun should come up at
5am. The sun will do what it wants and the communication will be overheard.

If you broadcast signals that are encrypted, but that I can intercept without
any kind of physical tampering or alteration or destruction of the signal,
again laws are of no help to anyone. The communication will be decrypted and
overheard.

It's better to make laws that conform to reality than to make laws that tilt
at windmills and are used arbitrarily against citizens.

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techtalsky
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
_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.

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yohui
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology)

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

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jessaustin
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
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?

~~~
jessaustin
_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
> 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
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
Everything you wrote is completely confused. Monsanto doesn't invent a new
strain of herbicide resistant crops every year. Roundup doesn't change. It is
a trade name for a chemical with an expired patent, and many different
companies make it.

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jacoblyles
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
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)

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indiefan
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.

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jessaustin
More background on Monsanto:

[http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto...](http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805)

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.

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

~~~
mbreese
This isn't _natural_ biology... it's engineered biology. That's a big
difference.

~~~
bsimpson
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
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.

