[SustainableTompkins] ETC Group: Monsanto Soy Patent Revoked after 13-year Battle

[Jon Bosak]

Tony Del Plato wrote:
> Are we reading/speaking the same language: patent revoked. While the legal &
> technical issues are wrestled with, regardless of how long it took, the
> strange irony is that Monsanto's earlier arguments, prior to its
> appropriation of the seeds, were used against it in the recent decision. The
> patent on one of the most common foods is no longer valid.

The patent would have expired in another year *anyway.*

 > I think it's
> important that we "see" a crack in the Monsanto armor.

Not if there isn't one.

> It will take much
> more to "decomidify" patents on foods and living things, but most struggles
> are won by a series of small steps.

This was not one of those steps.  The effect of the ruling on the remainder of 
Monsanto's patent portfolio is nothing. Nada. Zero.

 > Several years ago, WR Grace lost it's
> patent on products from the neem tree, again in Europe, years after it
> attempted to appropriate the source of ingredients used for thousands of
> years by peoples of India to make medicines & cosmetics. Percy Schmeiser
> lost his case in Canada based upon the fact that he "knowingly" planted
> round up rape seed. The Canadian high courts ducked the issue of resolving
> "ownership" of the genetic materials. I think it's important that every
> chink in corporate control and the corporate state is acknowledged and
> celebrated.

Sure, but this was not such an occasion.  Look at the scoreboard again:

Monsanto: 13 out of 14 possible years of gains from the soy patent.

ETC Group: 13 years of legal fees down the drain without establishing
any useful precedent.

 > I'm getting a sense that we're having a hair splitting
> discussion here.

Well, I don't have the time (or apparently the ability) to explain
the concept of a Pyrrhic victory, so I'll stop.  But I can tell you
that Monsanto cried all the way to the bank.

Jon