Comment by DigitalSea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DigitalSea | Hacker News Reader

Don't get me started on the evil company that is Monsanto. For those of you who aren't aware of the history of this company I strongly suggest you do some reading if you have the time. We're talking about a company more aggressive and protective of its patents than Apple or any tech company anyone has ever seen before.

History has proven that the courts aren't exactly all too good at delivering fair, unbiased and swift justice when it comes to a Monsanto vs (insert rural farmer here) cases. I hope Bowman wins this case, it'll hopefully set a precedent and example that Monsanto can't walk over family farmers trying to make an honest living. Most of the prior cases Monsanto has brought against farmers usually end up being settled because the defendant runs out of money to keep fighting and ends up losing everything they own.

It's companies like Monsanto that are ruining family farming. If this continues farming as we know it will cease to exist in the traditional sense as we all know it and eventually the only farms that will exist will be corporately owned ones.

We're talking about a company more aggressive and protective of its patents than Apple or any tech company anyone has ever seen before. Not that I condone Monsantos actions, but they kinda have to be: their inventions replicate quite freely, lowering the bar on infringement to entirely new levels (basically to infringe you have to do what your standard-issue caveman was already capable of...) - it raises the question of how to finance crop research when you can only take money for the first generation of seeds you sell.

IANAL. What worries me about this is that by changing a line of DNA in a 1G seed, 2G seeds (and beyond) fall under their patent. ie, they own the entire seed, and more importantly they own all the offspring of the 1G seed.

Isn't this the same concept as saying you replace a part in your vehicle/phone/pc/whatever with something that is patented, and now the patent covers the entire vehicle/phone/pc/whatever?

Alternatively you patent a commodity (seed/raw material/synthetic material/etc), now everything that is made from that commodity is covered by the original patent? what happens when you use the commodity to make a tool, with which you build other end products? where does this end?

Maybe I am misunderstanding, or have the wrong end of the stick?

There is at least some merit to the idea that the pollinated field is manufacturing the patented invention without a license.

(Which just points back to discussing the merits of granting such patents)

There is some merit there. However, it is no different than getting a patent on some protocol that sends bytes in an IP packet, and suing people who own routers for patent infringement, because those routers are copying the packet on reading it from the wire, and sending out a copy of the originally transmitted signal. This is arguably manufacturing a patented product too. So is any IDS that copies the packet to a buffer to do analysis on the stream.

"That's ridiculous!" a bunch of you are saying right now. You're right, because that's how the IP protocol works. Things get copied around, it's built into the basic underlying technology process you are utilizing. Yet, how is a plant producing pollen and sharing it's genes around with nearby neighbors not part of the underlying biological process the engineered genes are using?

The difference between Monsanto and Apple is that Monsanto's inventions are non-trivial compared to rounded corners and "slide to unlock" type of utility patents. I doubt anyone without a decent lab could produce any of Monsanto's patents.

I don't see how Monsanto would ruin family farming -- family farming existed centuries before Monsanto was founded. You can still buy non-GMO seeds, the only reason people buy that stuff is to improve yield.

True, but also, Apple is not active in a critical industry.

If they control or even mess up the computer industry, it's not the same as agriculture.

So companies producing IP in a critical industry like agriculture have no access to IP protection? If anyone is allowed to sell 2G seeds, then Monsanto will make no money, and no future agriculture company will ever spend money on GMO research if they know they cannot make money from it.

GMO seeds enable greater crop yields which would actually be better for humankind, so making money on GMO seeds is important. The great potato famine in Ireland wiped out a million people. We use more advanced fungicides now, but the chemicals used have a greater chance of causing liver damage than GMO plants. Obviously it would have to be a fair and balanced decision, but we can't throw out common sense because it affects a "critical industry".

Monsanto is an easy company to hate, but we can't make the wrong decision here or else it will affect future generations of companies who want to improve crop yields via GMO products.

If we want to take a look at the big picture, lets do that then.

Whats the cost-benefit of having patents on GMO seeds? Whats the increased cost to society vs disclosure of information? Patents are an barging, where the state gives a state protected monopoly in return for disclosure of information. Lets make a cost-benefit analyze and see where it points (hint, not even with imaginary numbers would patents on GMO seeds ever come up on top).

> no future agriculture company will ever spend money on GMO research

What a lie. Sorry, but I am going to call it what it is. A lie or a serious form of disillusioning. If you can create a better method to farm: vegetable oils, soy, rapeseed, jatropha, mahua, mustard, flax, sunflower, palm oil, hemp, field pennycress, Pongamia pinnata, or algae, you are going to earn serious money. The military would very much like to be able to producer cheaper biofuel, as would a never ending list of companies. Corn is an other, where a better seed would easy earn you billions if sold to the highest bidder.

Sure, you can't go around suing farmers who never heard of your company, but that is a good thing.

The US Defense Department has the right to confiscate your patent under eminent domain, and use it without providing you any compensation: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/09/68894

Why? Because its critical for national security. Is food security any different?

You know that Ireland was a net exporter of food during the great famine, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29#Food...

Famines these days tend to be more economic than agricultural.

I disagree. Monsanto's original business model was: "We have a patent on a herbicide called Round Up, if we can find a way to create seeds that result in plants resistant to our own chemical herbicide then we can sell the seeds too! If we convince farmers using our seeds and chemicals results in better yields and profits we can increase our market share of both." That was the original reason to create the modified seeds.

Do you think they are researching and investing in finding seeds/plants that don't have a tie-in to their chemicals?

EDIT: Their problem is that the patent on Round Up expired so we have other companies that can make and sell the herbicide generically now. Their original business model made sense and was reason enough for them to innovate and create GMO seeds.

Question: Can we now say that modifying genes to make organisms resistant to certain chemicals is no longer non-intuitive?

Having a non-diverse gene pool increases the likelihood of a species getting wiped out.

How does have a large majority of our food coming from the same gene pool help secure our future?

If anything it puts us all at greater risk. While in the short term GMO seeds might help, in the long term it appears we are increasing unnecessary risks. Typical current day view: shortsightedness and sacrificing the future for gaining today.

Monsanto's inventions are non-trivial

well... the fact is that a seed is not trivial also, and was not trivially changed in thousands of years by a lot of farmers and other people. Then you change one or a few parts in this seed and you can claim that all the "seed software" is yours. Even if you changed a single line.

Maybe we need a GPL for living creatures?

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is the "seed software" as it existed before you is still free for all to use. The software license analogy would be BSD (any non-copyleft license).

I wonder... if you simply don't use Roundup, the entire process shouldn't be claimed as fair use?.

You are not gaining a profit on the Monsanto work, Those seeds are not provided by Monsanto and as you can not avoid to use genetically contaminated, and identical to other seeds otherwise, you should not face a trial for this.

My understanding is that is exactly how it works in practice. Farmers aren't getting sued for accidentally having a few roundup ready plants in their field; they're getting sued for selecting for roundup ready seeds and then using roundup on their fields.

That's what happened in this case:

  That same year, Bowman applied glyphosate-based herbicide 
  to the fields in which he had planted the commodity seeds
  to control weeds and to determine whether the plants would
  exhibit glyphosate resistance.  He confirmed that many of
  the plants were, indeed, resistant.  In each subsequent
  year, from 2000 through 2007, Bowman treated his second-
  crop with glyphosate-based herbicide.  Unlike his first-
  crop, Bowman saved the seed harvested from his second-crop
  for replanting additional secondcrops in later years.  
  He also supplemented his secondcrop planting supply with
  periodic additional purchases of commodity seed from the
  grain elevator.  Bowman did not attempt to hide his 
  activities, and he candidly explained his practices with
  respect to his second-crop soybeans in various
  correspondence with Monsanto’s representatives.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-federal-circuit/1607718.html

("glyphosate" is the active ingredient in roundup, "glyphosate resistance" is the trait developed and patented by Monsanto.)

"I don't see how Monsanto would ruin family farming -- family farming existed centuries before Monsanto was founded. You can still buy non-GMO seeds"

Traditionally farmers would save a portion of their crop to plant for the next year. There is even a special machine that prepares seed for planting called a "seed cleaner". Enter patented GMO seed which gets planted in a field next to regular seed and is cross pollinated by nature. Now the farmer who didn't plant GMO seed has a crop that contains the GMO patented gene. So if he cleans that seed he is at risk of being sued the next year for patent infringement by monsanto. In fact they have been systematically been suing seed cleaners to to get their client lists and then sue the farmers. Since it is nearly impossible to ensure your crop hasn't been cross pollinated with a GMO crop Monsanto has essentially shut down the traditional way farmers have worked. additionally they are reportedly very aggressive in pursuing farmers and frequently trespass on their fields to take seed samples. That is why they say that they have "ruined" family farming.

Food Inc. is one good documentary where this is discussed in detail among other food related issues.

http://www.slowfoodsanfrancisco.com/blog/policy/monsanto-des...

Shouldn't it be possible to sue Monsato or neighbors for polluting your field with their genetically manipulated pollen? After all, they are, without you asking for it, polluting your field with something that reduces your abilities (the ability to use your own seeds).

Something similar was attempted: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/class-acti...

Yes. As glad as I am to see this farmer apparently have some chance of prevailing in this case, I would greatly prefer to see a Supreme Court test of the idea that a farmer whose crop was involuntarily contaminated by wind could then be sued for patent infringement. That's just nuts.

Do some more study before living stupid comments - all Monstanto DNA patents are code fragments from living organisms. This corporation is insanely evil, get a clue and stop defending it.

> The difference between Monsanto and Apple is that Monsanto's inventions are non-trivial compared to rounded corners and "slide to unlock" type of utility patents. I doubt anyone without a decent lab could produce any of Monsanto's patents.

Way to judge inventions based on your personal scales. So the requisite for patents is having big labs?

Just because something looks simple it doesn't mean it doesn't has value, or didn't had talent and R&D behind it. Do you realize there can be research even behind something as simple as the shape of a device, because there's someone thinking how millions of people will interact with it everyday?

That's the perverse thing about patents. Who has the right to judge if an invention is trivial or not.

Why is family farming worth protecting? What extra value do family farms provide to me, the person actually buying food? People lose their jobs because superior companies out-compete them all the time. Why should farmers be protected from this?

Food is essential for society and it strikes me as a very bad idea to leave it all in the hands of a selfish mega corporation with an exceptionally poor track record.

Medicine is essential for society as well. Would you like to take it out of the hands of the mega corporations as well? Who exactly would be making the new drugs? And don't say the gov't. They gov't's track record of producing new drugs is negligible. Gov't funding contributing to new drugs? Yes, of course. But gov't funding playing a major role in putting a new drug in a patient? Minimal.

Notice how you yourself provide the solution to the fake dilemma you set up: Let them create the drugs, for public funds, but without patent protection for the resulting product, or with reduced protections.

The problem is not that there are mega corporations making GMO seeds or mega corporations creating new drugs. The problem is the extensive patent rights on the result.

Because Monsanto is not competing - it is trying to use patent law to enforce its monopoly supply of the seeds

Also the area in which Monsanto operates is one where most people IMO would want the old ideals of scientific discovery and invention returned to the common to grow the whole wealth of mankind - not artificially inject a trap such that one company extracts profits at the expense of wider growth

The issue here is that farmers have been planting crops and saving some of the seed generated for the next season probably from Day 1 in agriculture. Monsanto seeks to insert themselves into this highly efficient process, blocking the replanting of seed and instead extracting for themselves a significant amount of money.

Farmers are free to enter into this relationship since the seeds do conver some advantages in reduced use of pesticides etc. but there is a significant problem with cross-contamination from neighboring crops and through the supply chain so Monsanto ends up suing farmers who never had any intention to use their products in order to get everyone to bow to their will and maintain the agri-business model.

The Monsanto seeds are only beneficial if used with Roundup Ready pesticide (or a generic equivalent). So let me ask you a hypothetical question: If Monsanto's policy was to only sue farmers whose fields had been cross-contaminated AND who used Roundup Ready pesticide, would that be a fair outcome? It would mean farmers could still use their traditional methods without worrying about cross-contamination as long as they didn't use the Monsanto pesticide.

As far as I know Roundup is a general use herbicide. If it was only licensed for use with Monsanto's GM products then I think Monsanto would have a case - assuming there were equivalent non-Monsanto herbicides freely available. I doubt Monsanto would be pretty happy about that however.

UPDATE: There was supposed to be some form of "terminator" gene included in the GM products to explicitly prevent generation two seeds from being replanted. I guess since we are talking about law-suits that did not really work as expected.

Actually, after a serious public kerfuffle, Monsanto pledged not to use this technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technol...

Glyphosphate (Roundup) is a now off-patent general herbicide that will pretty much kill everything (even your crop) unless it is genetically modified a la Monsanto's RoundUp ready crops. This is often how Monsanto finds people to sue; people that buy Roundup without buying the seeds.

I'm curious to know what you mean by 'equivalent non-Monsanto herbicides'. Roundup is specifically designed kill everything except Monsanto's GM crops. Are you saying that farmers with contaminated fields should be able to use a non-Monsanto herbicide which is specifically designed to avoid killing Monsanto's GM crops?

I thought that was in fact Monsanto's strategy. It's certainly the fact pattern in this particular case.

This isn't a case of a farmer having cross-contamination outside of his control of his saved seedstock, he actively worked to create his own group of seedstock that had their patented gene AND told people he was doing this.

Isn't it at least in everyone's best interest that OTHER seeds than Monsato's seeds are planted and grown as well? Otherwise it may end up like bananas (all bananas the same DNA and therefore very sensitive to diseases).

While Monsanto does sell seed under the Dekalb brand, they also license to the technology to other seed companies, so it is not simply a matter of buying Monsanto seeds.

Additionally, I don't have my contract with me at the moment, but I seem to recall the requirement of planting a percentage of non-GM crops as part of the agreement of using said seed. Planting RR crops year after year on the same ground doesn't work very well.

Because your home garden is next on the hit list after all the family farms are gone. Most of the family farms do fine and produce well. Monsanto isn't competing, it is basically bullying everyone with "seed contamination" even if you don't want to buy their products.

One very good reason family farming should be protected, is that large scale monoculture is detrimental to our environment.

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~miguel-alt/modern_agriculture.ht...

It would seem to me that Monsanto's best play might be to forget about the patent lawsuits and just increase the price of their Roundup herbicide to compensate. Get complete market dominance with the seeds, letting them be freely copied, knowing that the herbicide will be difficult to manufacture. Razor and blade model.

The patent on Roundup (glyphosphate) expired in 2000 [1], so that's probably not a viable strategy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

It's my understanding that in large agriculture, Monsanto produces a new Roundup "recipe" every year and matching "Roundup Ready" seeds. Of course, I can't find a source on this right now, so I may be way off.

Monsanto reminds me of Microsoft in the 90s, but worse.

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