Would you care to offer some insight on what Order 81 actually says? Because if all you have to offer is this comment, I would opine you haven’t looked at the issue at all.
It’s NOT legal, in other words, because the Order in question said no such thing.
Right?
Here’s a clarified discussion. It indicates (at the top) that paragraph 66 means only what it says – it prohibits Iraqi farmers from reuse of “protected” (i.e., patented) seed, like US patent law, but it says nothing about reuse of conventional seed. Note too that paragraph 51 of Order 81 denies protectability to any seed variety that has been “previously sold or otherwise transferred” or whose existence is “common knowledge.”
Certainly, if one objects in general to the creation or the patenting of genetically modified seed, Order 81 will not be to one’s liking. I don’t think it establishes any rules on what Iraqi farmers must use, however. Rather, it’s just a garden-variety patent law.
I see what you did there.
Having come across several cites that stated that the traditional seed was deemed to be infringing, and therefore illegal, I do intend to look deeper into this whole thing. Particularly the bit about " ‘Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties *** or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph © of Article 14 of this Chapter.***’ What varieties are mentioned here? They do not seem to of the protected type as worded above, but made to be protected due to mandate. Serious legalese to dig through, and not being a lawyer, I’ll go with, for now, the heavy weight of cites stating that Iraqi farmers were no longer allowed to use the seed they had used for millenia.
Or all the pages of cites simply wrong? I do not know, but see there is an exception for strains not protected already by patent. Already very suspicious to me to say any seed not already protected by patent is illegal. Anyone able to clarify what varieties are mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph C of Article 14 of this (?) Chapter? I am unsure why such a statement would need to be made above and beyond a patent already clear in and of itself.
Thanks for educating me on what the bolded portion above entails - seriously. I see what many others have said elsewhere, and would love to see the actual varieties covered and if those are owned by anyone in particular.
This may be relevant to it - from a source already cited, and bolding is mine "The other varieties referred to are those that show similar characteristics to the PVP varieties. If a corporation develops a variety resistant to a particular Iraqi pest, and somewhere in Iraq a farmer is growing another variety that does the same, it’s now illegal for him/her to save that seed. It sounds mad, but it’s happened before. A few years back a corporation called SunGene patented a sunflower variety with a very high oleic acid content. It didn’t just patent the genetic structure though, it patented the characteristic. Subsequently SunGene notified other sunflower breeders that should they develop a variety high in oleic acid with would be considered an infringement of the patent.
If that is what Monsanto et al is focusing on - Evil. Or is it hunky-dory to outlaw great natural traits unless owned by corporations? Bricker? Care to say how natural traits are protected here? Please. Or am I missing something about what is bolded?
Be back tomorrow to see if Iraqi farmers must buy what nature gave them for free. Thanks.
So by “look deeper,” you mean what?
How about actually reading the damn order, in its entirety, rather than relying on your Luddite sources?
hint: they all dance around quoting the entire order, and hide relevant sections by ellipses.
Well I have no other arguments except my original one. It’s impractical to enforce the patent rights here. We shouldn’t allow our courts to be clogged with cases caused by a patent owners creating a self reproducing invention. They’re not clogged from such at the moment, so I doubt that will be much of a consideration to anyone. But a 3D printer that can reproduce itself is just around the corner and the flood gates might open with that one.
The problem I have with Schmeiser (thanks, Bricker, for the link) is that it allows no “out” for an innocent infringer. That is, I’m okay with the proposition that patent law can protect modified seed stocks. And I’m okay with the proposition that farmers who intentionally save protected seed stocks which happen to blow onto their property can be found to infringe the patent. What strikes me as bizarre and unfair is that, as far as I can see, there’s no way under the court’s reasoning for an ordinary farmer saving seed from season-to-season to avoid this result. That has to be wrong.
No, you didn’t. You came across several SITES, e.g. websites, all of whom seem to be repeating the claim from one or two of the same source and none of which exhibit an understanding of the actual order. You have provided not a single CITE, e.g. a link to original, verifiable evidence, that Iraqi farmers were legally prevented from using their own seeds or forced to buy particular ones.
Can you even point us to the text of Order 81?
I think you’re misreading. The court specifically found the infringing action Percy took was deliberately spraying his crop with Roundup, which killed all his standard seeds and left only the modified seeds; then storing those seeds and replanting. An innocent farmer, who simply collects and replants seeds, may end up with a smattering of modified seeds amongst his standard seeds, and that’s not a problem.
I read most of Order 81, and from what I can tell in the supremely-extreme legalese of the document, is that if the already-grown strains in Iraq are/were anything like a strain already patented elsewhere (and comanies patent most any characteristic, right?) then it is illegal to use/reuse such strain. I’d cite it, but listing around 20+ pages is not feasible. Order 81 made illegal already used ‘local’ strains due to a company patenting a characteristic in some other country. Pretty much exactly as I have been saying with presumption that Iraqi farmers know what they are doing in saving desirable seed. And pretty much what the links I gave were saying (with presumption that Iraqi farmers knew what they were doing in saving seed that grew well without problems).
It is common sense to know that a farmer will save seed that shows desirable characteristics. Right? Or shall we debate elsewhere that seed is/was saved for desirable traits and why such seed was saved for reuse? So, if Monsanto or other corp had patented such a broadly-defined characteristic (per wide-ranging definition(s) of text of Order 81 and the portion saying "…or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph (C) of Article 14 of this
Chapter.”) anywhere else, then farmers in Iraq were not allowed to continue using what they had already done themselves by cross-pollination. Call it retroactively saying that a corporation had wondrously, and all by themselves through some scientific process they invented or discovered something that already existed in some other country and was in use commercially, I guess.
It is definitely fair to say that Iraqi famers were/are no longer allowed to use what was discovered on their own in that country. If a corp had patented/claimed anything similar (which again is well-known to be the modus operandi of most any corp, of course) then Iraqis had to pay that corp to use such strain showing said near-characteristic, which does not have to be exactly matched to said characteristic being claimed. It appears that ‘close enough’ became an infringing aspect of something nature gave to Iraq farmers. If its anywhere close to similar, it became property of someone else by mandate/law. And not usable unless money paid to corp owning such characteristic by claim through the new process of registering anything grown commercially in Iraq.
Free-from-fee strains could not be anything similar in characteristic (widely defined characteristics, too, from what I can tell) to what any corp claimed to own. And since Iraqis grew and saved their seed for such characteristic traits, it was already in use for a looong time there, but they could no longer use such strains without paying someone else. Quite ridiculous - and Teh Evil as I know it.
In what way have I erred on saying that Iraqi farmers could no longer grow and save the seed they already had been using through their own trial/error process of millenia-old practices? It is certain they grew for desirable traits that were claimed broadly by outside corporations elsewhere, but then they had to pay for such right to grow the next year since the war victors, through Bremer, said so. And it is easy to find out who wanted such language placed into law in Iraq, of course. It was not the Iraqi farmers, was it?
I am convinced, after reading the details, that I am on-target on this. And many others in agriculture say the same thing about the patenting/claiming to own traits of plants that have nothing to do with anything other than cross-pollination and the results thereof, such as being high in oleic acid in the case of sunflowers (easy to Google for more on this aspect). Bremer just stated that Iraqis could no longer use what they already had been using, without paying Monsanto (or other corp) a fee since the corp claimed ownership of a trait because it was nearly the same as something else. The seed/strains in use became infringing, by definition of Order 81, because they were kind of alike, or even a bit similar, despite such strains already having been in use for quite some time.
Teh Evil, absolutely. And with this, I rest my case since I know conservative-type thinkers see this totally different and never will they see it differently. It is very much a big-business/American practice to force others do it their way through lobbying of new laws and pay them for the supposed privilege of it, no matter the price to anyone affected by it.
Have a great day 
Let’s say your interpretation is correct, just for the sake of argument. It should be very easy for you to demonstrate then that this is what has happened in practice, since it’s been over 7 years since that directive was written. What has the practical result been? How many farmers have been prosecuted in Iraq for using traditional seed under this order? What has the result been for Iraqi agriculture? Should be some updates on this monstrous Evil™, correct? How about something that’s less than 7 years old?
A newer article from the U.N..
Another Monsanto lawsuit-not quite so clear cut.
Typo in my last comment: That should refer to paragraph 61, not paragraph 51.
Those are set forth in paragraph 65 of Order 81 (which is linked to in my post). Item 1 refers to varieties of seeds “essentially derived” from patented seeds. Item 2 refers to varieties of seeds that are “not clearly distinguishable” from patented seeds.
“varieties of seeds that are “not clearly distinguishable” from patented seeds”.
What exactly does this mean? Does the document clarify this and/or say who gets to determine whether a variety of seed is “clearly distinguishable” from one of Monsanto’s patented seeds?
Yes, truly a challenge.
Since it already says that seeds that are common knowledge are not covered, doesn’t that alone put the lie to Ionizer’s claims?
Those “seeds of common knowledge” will, by nature, change due to cross-pollination in just a generation or two, so my questions still stand.
What exactly does “not clearly distiguishable” mean?
Who makes the determination-Monsanto, the farmer, or a third party?
edited to add: What does do to the rights of the farmers to improve their seed stock if they have to avoid all characteristics that Monsanto might list?
You can’t provide a link? Really? And just mention a relevant section? That’s… curious. How did you read the law? Is it online? Can we see it, please? For that matter, is there evidence Iraqi farmers have been forced to do the things claimed?
Understand that I am not conservative. I am, however, very skeptical.
Bricker, that appears to be an addendum to Order 81, not the full text.
There are provisions (at paragraphs 48 and 78) for filing a patent infringement suit in court. The meaning of the terms of the Order would be argued there. Again, this order just looks like an ordinary code of patent law. The threshold notion of patenting a GM seed may be objectionable, but the procedures it sets out for determining what is protected don’t seem unusually tilted toward the patent applicant/holder. At least no more so than US law.
The Order refers to “common knowledge at the time of filing the application” (for protection).
How so? The title is, “COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY ORDER NUMBER 81.” What makes you suspect it’s an addendum?