[Patents] Supremes Uphold Seed Patentability

[seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson)]

(Forwarded from Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism list,
ipcb-net@ipcb.org)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 11:10:24 -0500 (EST)
From: <dharry@nativeweb.org>

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Supremes Uphold Seed Patentability
From: Doug Hunt <dhunt@gencen.org>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

December 11,2001 

High Court Says Seeds Can Be Patented,
In Ruling Beneficial to Biotech Industry
By SCOTT KILMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a ruling beneficial to the crop-biotechnology
industry, upheld the patentability of plants and seed.

The 6-2 opinion, which was closely watched by intellectual-property
experts, keeps intact hundreds of utility patents granted by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office over the past 16 years to companies such as
Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co.'s Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. unit.
The U.S. biotechnology industry has spent billions of dollars to
genetically modify crops. Without patents on these plants, industry
officials argue, companies wouldn't be able to protect their
modifications from copycats. "The biotech industry won't invest in crops
unless they have patent protection," said Janice Mueller, a professor of
patent law at John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

The opinion, released Monday, upset populist farm groups and
antibiotechnology groups hoping to roll back parts of patent law. Before
the biotech era, Congress went to some lengths to keep plants in public
hands: Farmers could save some of their crop for use during the next
planting season, even though it had inherited special characteristics
developed by their seed supplier. Also, seed companies couldn't stop
competitors from using their wares in research.

The 1985 decision by the patent office to issue utility patents on seed
is strangling those practices. "The Supreme Court decision is bad for
farmers," said David Moeller, a staff lawyer for Farmers' Legal Action
Group, a not-for-profit St. Paul, Minn., law firm that represents
growers.

The legality of plant patents was untested until Pioneer Hi-Bred, the
nation's biggest seed company, sued J.E.M. Ag Supply Inc., a Belmond,
Iowa, farm-supply dealership, in 1998 for selling Pioneer corn seed to
farmers without its permission. Pioneer argued that its corn-plant
patents gave it the right to decide who sells its seed.

What was routine litigation exploded in importance when Bruce E.
Johnson,
the Des Moines, Iowa, lawyer for the farm-supply dealership, argued
among
other things that the special exemptions created for farmers by Congress
in the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 essentially made the
patenting of plants illegal.

The federal judge hearing the case in Sioux City, Iowa, took the
argument
so seriously that he cleared the way for the question to go to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the federal circuit in Washington, which upheld
plant patents in January 2000.

Among other things, the majority in the Supreme Court decided that
Congress has encouraged a broad use of patents and hadn't taken steps to
directly block utility patents on seeds.

The Supreme Court decision clears the way for Pioneer Hi-Bred to resume
its lawsuit against J.E.M.

A spokesman for Pioneer said the company was pleased with the decision.

Mr. Johnson, the J.E.M. lawyer, said he and the firm were "surprised
and,
of course, disappointed."


-------------
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism
PO Box 818
Wadsworth, NV 89442
www.ipcb.org
ipcb@ipcb.org
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