New Iraq Law Outlaws Saving Seeds! Requires Licenses!

Originally posted by slank
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Nygdan,

Are you aware that lots of big chunks of your DNA are also patented by Monsanto and other companies?

I'd like to see them try to enforce that patent.

Thats the thing, they aren't going to win any lawsuit over something as ridiculous as that.

Do you think they have a right to patent what nature created?

No, infact I don't. I don't see the rationale behind patenting the gene sequenses in already living organisms. I do see a sense in patenting the technique involved in inserting, say, bacterial genes into the rice genome, and similar things. And, since I'm not clerk at the patent office, I can't don't really think that my opinion on this is particularly important, and certainly not influential. Regardless, monsanto has the patent to these seeds, they invested in the research, they produced it, they hold a perfectly legal patent, and Iraq is and should be enforcing those patent rights.


Now I agree entirely that the question of cross-fertilization is a problem, and I, personally, don't see any sense in enforcing a patent when the stuff crosses over to another crop all together. I think that they should realistically have to produce crops that bear no seeds in order to avoid this problem.

I mean, if I made a little machine that performs a fucntion, say one of those robotic vaccums, I should be allowed to have a patent on it. But If that robo-vacuum makes other little robo-vacuums, and they run around the world cleaning people's houses, how can I expect to collect patent royalties from those people?

Think it is far fetched? Guess again. They own it according to law.
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They hold a patent on a genetic sequence, they don't technically 'own' anything. That patent can or cannot aide them in trying to collect on whatever it is that they own, its usually up to the courts to decide if there patent would allow that. Obviously, in the case of actual human beings, they aren't going to collect on that 'patent'.