> 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.
Gee asshole, it's almost like there's a fucking reason I said my grandpa's farm is small.
And it's not unicorns, it's horses, beef cattle and some heifers, and the hay required to feed them (and the alfalfa needed to restore the fields while they lie fallow).
> 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.)
That might apply to this case, but that doesn't answer the general question.
Let's say some Big Pharma spends $15 billion to develop a cure for acne by using genetic manipulation techniques, but the cure has to be delivered by a refitted retrovirus and the retrovirus can be "farmed" by anyone with an incubation lamp and a supply of eggs into however many doses are desired.
No side product here, just the acne "cure". How do you allow for development and marketing of that? What's your solution?
Patent is what we have for short-term protection. I don't think any of us want to broach into the realm of infinite-length copyright. Do you have a better idea?
Gee asshole, it's almost like there's a fucking reason I said my grandpa's farm is small.
And it's not unicorns, it's horses, beef cattle and some heifers, and the hay required to feed them (and the alfalfa needed to restore the fields while they lie fallow).
> 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.)
That might apply to this case, but that doesn't answer the general question.
Let's say some Big Pharma spends $15 billion to develop a cure for acne by using genetic manipulation techniques, but the cure has to be delivered by a refitted retrovirus and the retrovirus can be "farmed" by anyone with an incubation lamp and a supply of eggs into however many doses are desired.
No side product here, just the acne "cure". How do you allow for development and marketing of that? What's your solution?
Patent is what we have for short-term protection. I don't think any of us want to broach into the realm of infinite-length copyright. Do you have a better idea?