[Pirateninfo] Fw: Schmeisser and patents/Campaign against patents on life

[Martin Sundermann]

GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org
---
1.Canola Case Tests GMO Patent
2.New campaign against patents on life
---
1.Canola Case Tests GMO Patent
By Kristen Philipkoski
Wired News, Dec. 02, 2003
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61241,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

The future of genetically modified crops in North America is in the hands of
a 73-year-old Canadian canola farmer named Percy Schmeiser.

Schmeiser already has lost two court cases dealing with his use of seed
designed by Monsanto, but he and his supporters have made it to the Supreme
Court of Canada with a new argument: Monsanto's patent is invalid.

The case, to be heard in January, will be binding only in Canada. But the
outcome will have an unofficial ripple effect throughout the United States
and the rest of the continent, where Monsanto has sued more than 500 farmers
for infringing on its genetically modified seed patents.

In addition to Monsanto, companies including Dow, DuPont and Bayer sell
their versions of genetically modified soy, corn and canola seeds to farmers
in
North America.

"Monsanto does not have a patent for the canola seed," said Nadege Adam, a
campaigner for the Council of Canadians, a group with intervener status in
the Schmeiser case. "It was given a patent for a gene trait.... In Canada,
no one has ever been given a patent for either a plant or a seed, only
genes."

Recently, efforts to keep life forms unpatented in Canada were reinforced
when the Supreme Court ruled against Harvard College, saying it did not have
patent rights for its OncoMouse. Harvard scientists worked 17 years to
develop the mouse that quickly develops cancer, but the court said it does
not count as an invention.

"Higher life forms," including plants, cannot be patented unless Parliament
mandates it, the court said, based on what it called the widely accepted
difference between higher and lower life forms.

"Patentable microorganisms are formed in such large numbers that any
measurable quantity will possess uniform properties and characteristics,"
the
decision said. "The same cannot be said for plants and animals."

The OncoMouse case was a blow to the Canadian biotech industry and set the
country apart from the United States and Europe, which granted patents on
the rodent. Schmeiser's supporters plan to use the case as a precedent. A
decision in Schmeiser's favor could call into question the validity of all
gene patenting in Canada.

"They have a patent on a gene, but the end result is no different from a
patent on a plant, (which would be) invalid because it operates as a patent
on a higher life form," said Terry Zakreski, Schmeiser's attorney.

Others wonder where the line could be drawn between a patent on a gene and a
patent on a seed or plant. A Monsanto spokeswoman said she's confident that
the Supreme Court will find the canola patent valid in Canada.

"The (lower) courts found the patent was valid, and that is important not
only to Monsanto, but companies like us who continue to invest in Canada,
knowing our rights will be respected," said Trish Jordan, a spokeswoman for
Monsanto's Canadian operations.

The lower court cases operated under the assumption that Monsanto's patent
is valid. Their decisions state that Schmeiser "knew or should have known"
he
was using Monsanto's patented seeds without a license. The Supreme Court
case will focus specifically on whether the patent should be upheld.

A neighboring farmer in 1997 told Monsanto that Schmeiser was growing
Roundup Ready seeds, Jordan said. Roundup Ready seeds grow plants that are
resistant to a Monsanto herbicide called Roundup, which kills everything
else in its path.

Several other farmers have settled out of court with Monsanto, but the
settlement amounts are confidential and the farmers involved are barred from
discussing details. Schmeiser is the first to take on Monsanto in court.

Despite facing fines of about $1.2 million, which Schmeiser said would
bankrupt him and his wife and cause them to lose their home and farm, he
said he
doesn't regret confronting Monsanto.

"Yes, it has been stressful, but we just made up our minds that we're not
going to give up," he said.

Unlike most other canola farmers, Schmeiser grew canola every year instead
of rotating in another crop like wheat. He had developed his seed over four
decades to grow well year after year on the same land. He was also a "seed
saver," which means he keeps seeds from each crop to plant the next.

"I was a seed developer; I didn't want anything to do with GMOs," Schmeiser
said.

But in 1997 when he saved his seeds, they were mixed with Roundup Ready
seeds, which Schmeiser admits he suspected. (He tested by spraying Roundup
on a small area of crop in a ditch adjacent to his land, and some of the
plants lived.) That's why the lower courts ruled against him.

Roundup Ready is the most popular seed Monsanto sells in Canada -- more than
30,000 Canadian farmers use it -- probably because canola is still fairly
wild. It was domesticated more recently than other crops like soy and wheat,
making it unpredictable and more difficult to grow.

But Roundup Ready seeds are expensive: $15 per acre, compared with zero when
farmers save their seeds. Monsanto requires customers to sign a contract
stating they will not save seeds, which some farmers, including Schmeiser,
say is against Canadian law.

The company says farmers can recoup the cost with better-quality crops. But
farmers who don't want to spend the extra money, or who would rather retain
organic status (genetically modified crops are barred from organic
labeling), eschew the Roundup Ready seeds.

It's impossible to completely contain seeds, said E. Ann Clark, a professor
of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Seeds can be
carried by wind, spilled from delivery trucks or transported in bird
droppings, making contamination inevitable.

Monsanto will remove any unwanted Roundup Ready canola, or any other
genetically modified crop, from farmers' crops for free. But Clark and
others
argue that by the time a genetically modified seed gets into a crop, it's
too late. It's impossible to test the DNA of every plant in a crop, and they
all look exactly alike. Another option is to spray Roundup, but that would
kill the crop grown from the farmer's own seed. If Monsanto then removed
plants grown with its patented gene, the farmer would be left with an empty
field.

Schmeiser and his supporters say this is one reason why they don't believe
Monsanto's patent should extend to the plant.

"Now I can't even grow canola because it's all contaminated, along with
dozens of other farmers," Schmeiser said. "They say that I ought to or
should have known (I had their seed). They ought to or should have known
that it would contaminate. They knew it would and now it's out of control."
---
2.New campaign against patents on life

GM:  Contamination and the subversive Patents on Life-Forms

>From Mike Stagman     www.MyronStagman.com        Swansea      01792-511597
mstagman at hotmail.com

[I am a visiting American research scholar (currently in Wales, UK), author,
& Dr. of English Literature.]

GM (Genetic Modification) is a nightmare technology that has already killed,
crippled, or permanently afflicted thousands of people in the USA, UK,
Canada, and elsewhere.  GM is also a deadly menace to Nature and our entire
Planet.   This has all been documented despite the stifling & skewing of
reports on GM's true effects. (Fact-sheets &  supporting references
available on request.)

There are NO BENEFITS to us from "Frankenstein" food & crops.  We have
everything to lose and nothing to gain.  On the other hand, a handful of
giant multinational corporations  will actually own the national &
international food supply by means of GM, dictating the prices of food (and
medicine).  How is this possible?

Corporations have been outrageously allowed to own patents on life-forms
(and living processes).  (A single U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 by
a 5-4 vote designated one micro-organism, after which the U.S. Patent Office
indiscriminately handed out patents on plants & animals & human body parts
to
corporations.)

So, anything contaminated by GM could be owned by a corporation.  And
planet-wide contamination is inevitable, for biological as well as political
& economic reasons.  As the Soil Association states, "No farmer -- organic
or conventional -- will be able to escape contamination."

In other words, the patenting of life-forms is a gigantic corporate swindle
with horrifying consequences to us and our world.

We must seek a fundamental Solution to this Biotech-GM-Frankenstein menace,
since superficial methods (labelling, traceability, liability, even GM-free
zones) only buy us a little time.  And there is indeed a Solution.

We have two problems. One is the corporate patents on life-forms (combined
with the contamination process).  The second is this:  the tragic ignorance,
apathy, and passivity of the General Publics of the world.  (Simply being
anti-GM is by no means enough, as Governments influenced by Money
Politics will ignore anything except real pressure,  meaning a general
populace that is truly informed and publicly advocating.)

The Solution and our Proposal:   Whether initiated in the Welsh Assembly,
Scottish, or Westminster Parliaments,  by a People's Referendum, or
preferably in all of them,  we propose a Resolution and a LAW that DENIES
the validity of patents on life-forms.  Then, using resolution or proposed
law as a focal point, we educate & activate the General Public about GM and
the vital necessity of outlawing patents on life-forms.

Such a law & public education/advocacy campaign can establish a model for
Europe and the World.

Do, if you would, contact (call & write)  Assembly Members & MPs.   And
communications media (e.g. Letters-to-the-Editor are really quite helpful.).
Urge the discussion and eventual Resolution and Law banning patents on
life-forms.


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