Seed reuse and GM pollen pollution

Great Debates
61

The point is that it is a living, self-replicating organism. The “patented product” is a miniscule component of that. Its not like Monsanto had created a living, breathing (well photosynthesizing) organism from scratch. They added a handful genes from one organism to another. Organisms reproduce its, what they do, its one of the definitions of life itself.

The idea that because of a handful of genes (that it must be remembered they did not create) Monsanto should have rights to the result of natural plant reproduction is totally insane. The result of this insanity is that normal farming practices should be illegal acts.

Not only that I’m sure 90% of the public would agree that its insane, if it was explained to them in an understandable way.

62

And I gave you TWO (thisand this).

All those people were doing was CLEANING SEED.

63

Completely wrong once again. If you had bothered to read the patent you would realise that it is primarily for the gene insertion and selection technology.

The living, self-replicating organism is a miniscule component of the “patented product”, not the other way around.

You are quite right. So it’s damn good thing that such an event never occurred.

Right? :rolleyes:

You keep making up these ignorant claims, and I keep asking for references, and you keep failing to provide them, only to come back with another even wilder assertion.

So, just for the hell of it:

Cite!

Please provide evidence that Monsanto was granted a patent because of a handful of genes. Quote the patent number so we can all see what the patent entails.

Cite!

Please provide evidence of a single person who been found to have breached the law because of normal farming practices.

You just keep inventing these claims, and you have no evidence at all that they ever occurred.

Once again, you have no evidence for this claim. But even if you are correct, so what?

90% of the public don’t know what a mutation is. 90% of the public don’t know that what a molecule is. 90% of the public don’t know the difference between protein and DNA. 90% of the public doesn’t know the relationship between a gene and DNA. 90% of the public doesn’t know the difference between a patent and a copyright. 90% of the public doesn’t understand the difference between criminality and illegality.

And I am gong to go out on limb and say that you are part of that 90%.

Does that give confidence that the public have the knowledge required to make evaluation of this issue?

We only have to look at the provably ignorant information posted by you and gonzomax in this thread to see that Liberals have decided to ignore facts and science on this issue, and instead make it one of hysteria and demonic corporations.

We are not talking here about errors that are debatable. We are talking about issues of uncontested fact, such as claims that Schmeiser hated GM plants or claims that Monsanto was granted a patent for nothing more than handful of genes or that people have been found guilty of breaching the law for cleaning seeds.

All these statements are the result of willful ignorance and have no basis at all in fact. But they get repeated again and again in every one of these threads. And in every thread we go through and correct them, with references, and they get repeated by the same people in the very next thread.

With this sort of ignorant, anti-science Luddite stance coming ceaselessly from the Liberal propaganda machine, it would hardly be surprising if the public did believe it.

That does not make it true. It just means that it’s widely believed ignorant nonsense. As Cecil Adams once said: We don’t take a votes on the facts.

64

Utter rubbish!

Both of those cites say that the operators are being sued for aiding illegal practices.

Neither of those cites says that “merely cleaning seed” is “a punishable act”. That was your contention remember, that “merely cleaning seed” is “a punishable act”

Don’t think that it has escaped anyone’s notice what you are doing here.

What you are doing is exactly the same as claiming that man was convicted “merely” for going to a party. Sure, when we look at the details he went to the party, got drunk and drove home and was convicted of DUI. But he was convicted “mere;y” for doing what partygoers have been doing for thousands of years.

I know that this sort of minimisation of illegal acts is a favourite of Liberals, but it never actually works. These people aren’t being perused “merely” because of lawful activities. They are being pursued because their lawful activities are have led to other, unlawful activities.

So I ask once again: please provide evidence for your extraordinary claim that any court in the world has held that “merely cleaning seed” is “a punishable act”.

I am not asking for evidence that aiding illegal practices is a punishable act. I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone. I am asking for evidence for your claim that “merely cleaning seed” is “a punishable act”.

65

BY MERELY CLEANING SEED!!!

They did not grow those seeds, they never signed any contract with Monsanto saying they wouldn’t grow the seed, they just CLEANED them.

You can come up with as many spurious irrelevant analogies as you wont change that fact that those seed cleaners just, you know, CLEANED SEED. That is what they hauled into court for NORMAL FARMING PRACTICES!!!

66

So if Monsanto were to start using their Terminator gene again – the one that makes their Roundup-immune plant sterile after one generation – then that would remove your objection.

Right?

67

This analogy only shows you don’t understand this issue and the legal ramifications at all.

The law Microsoft would use in this case IS NOT PATENT LAW. It is copyright law. Microsoft CREATED the contents of that disk, in its entirety. They have the COPYRIGHT that bans people from making copies of that without their permission (just like I cannot copy the Harry Potter book without JK Rowlings permissions).

What this law says is that these handful of genes, that were not created by Monsanto (or even discovered by them, only used by them for the first time in this way) gives Monsanto right to control all the offspring of any organism they are contained in.

68

Bullshit. You’re quoting from the co-op’s lawyer’s version as though it’s the absolute truth.

Monsanto’s claim against the seed cleaners is that it encouraged the farmers to clean and replant Monsanto-licensed seed. Isn’t it?

That’s against the law – 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) provides:

So that law says that if you actively induce someone else to infringe on a patent, you are liable for that patent infringement.

DSU Medical Corp. v. JMS Co., Ltd., 471 F. 3d 1293 (Fed. Cir. 2006) lays out the specifics of this claim:

That’s the law.

In Monsanto Co. v. Parr, 545 F. Supp. 2d 836 (2008), the Federal District Court of the Northern District of Indiana considered a simialr claim against a seed cleaner. The court pointed out that there are reams of caselaw holding that replanting saved Roundup-immune crops is a direct infringement of the Monsanto patent. Much as griffin tries to claim here, defendant Parr claimed that neither the sole act of saving seed, nor the sole act of cleaning seed, was an infringement. But the court said that the evidence showed:

That alone was sufficient to prove the case against the defendant. He knew of the Monsanto patent, and actively and knowingly cleaned the seeds anyway.

69

Nope the first patent listed on Monsanto’s own marketing materials:

All they did was think of adding that virus gene to a plant. The idea that this should allow them to use patent law (which was intended to allow small inventors from having their IDEAS stolen by larger competitors) to sue people who CLEAN SEEDS is absolutely insane.

70

Yeah, no shit. Newsflash: Edison did not create carbon filaments out of thin air. He merely used them for the first time in a glass bulb to create light by running electricity through them.

Nonetheless, he got a patent for that use, and thereafter would be able to legally prevent anyone else from doing that.

Because, you see, using items that exist in nature for the first time in a new way is pretty much patentable shit.

71

No, by “merely” cleaning and distributing seed in a manner that they know is facilitating a breach of both patent law and civil contract.

You don’t dispute that they are cleaning this seed to knowingly facilitate subsequent sowing.

Right?

That is the whole purpose of seed cleaning.

Right?

And you don’t dispute that the farmer who intends to subsequently sow the seed is not authorised by Monsanto to sow this seed

Right?

And you do agree that unauthorised sowing of this seed is a breach of both patent law and civil contract?

Right?

And you do agree that the seed cleaner is aware that unauthorised sowing of this seed is a breach of both patent law and civil contract?

Right?

Stop me ant any point where you disagree.

So these seed cleaners are performing a service. For profit. And that service will facilitate subsequent sowing. And both the cleaner and the sower are aware that that subsequent sowing is illegal.

You agree with all that, right?

And according to you, knowingly facilitating an illegal act for profit is “merely cleaning seed”, and shouldn’t be punished under law.

Is that correct? Your contention is that although the seed cleaner knows that their actions are facilitating an illegal act, and although the seed cleaner knows that they are profiting by facilitating this illegal act, they should face no punishment?

And they knew that seed supplier had signed a contract with Monsanto saying they wouldn’t grow the seed.
And they knew when they cleaned them that the seeds that the supplier would subsequently grow them.
And they knew that that subsequent sowing would breach the contract with Monsanto.
And they were getting paid to facilitate this sowing.

Do you agree with all that?

No, they didn’t just clean seed.

They also knowingly facilitated an illegal act for profit.

The fact that they facilitated the act by cleaning seed does not mean that they “just cleaned seed”. It means that they cleaned seed and also knowingly facilitated an illegal act for profit.

Since when is knowingly facilitating an illegal act for profit normal farming practice?

Get a load of this folks. griffin1977 is saying that if someone brought in a load of marijuana seed for cleaning, the seed cleaners should be able to clean it with no legal worries at all. Because although cultivating marijuana is an illegal act, they didn’t cultivate it.

They “merely” cleaned it.

Sure they knew that it was marijuana seed.

Sure they knew the people who brought it were committing an illegal act merely by possessing it.

Sure they knew they were going to subsequently cultivate it.

Sure they knew that cultivating marijuana is illegal.

But they “merely” cleaned the illegally possessed seed in order for it to be illegally cultivated.

Clearly they bear no responsibility. And if the DEA charged them for aiding in the cultivation of an illegal drug, then griffin1977 would leap to their defence.

Because they were convicted of a felony for “normal farming practices”.

I would really like to hear from the peanut gallery here. Is anybody at all buying this argument from griffin1977? Does anybody at all think that knowingly facilitating an illegal act for profit should not be punishable at all?

72

What gave you the idea that patent law is intended only to protect small inventors? Of course, it does, but it also protects giant inventors form having their ideas stolen by small operators. In fact, it protects any inventor from having his invention stolen by anyone else.

And again: did you read and understand 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) ?

Do you understand that the CLEANERS OF SEEDS are actively encouraging people to infringe on a patent?

73

Did you even read this ? This is one designer of needle devices suing another designer of needle devices, they DESIGNED AND SOLD a device specifically to get around the guys patent. That is clearly an area that clearly should be governed by patent law.

How the hell should that apply to someone who is CLEANING SEED! Nothing you posted above alters the fact that, it’s all they did. JUST CLEANING SEED!

74

That is the nub of it… Somehow a major international corporation has convinced the American legal system that PATENT LAW should be used legislate the natural reproduction of plant life. Patent law was intended to protect designer of mechanical devices from people copying their inventions and selling them (and, yes, it was specifically written to allow small companies to protect themselves from larger ones).

It is madness to try and claim that somehow law should somehow apply to natural plant reproduction. It is doubly madness to suggest that CLEANING SEEDS is “facilitating a breach of patent law”

75

Of course I read it. I quoted it because it’s a recent decision that lays out the standard for when someone is liable for inducing patent infringement.

That case says that the standard is that a person infringes by actively and knowingly aiding and abetting another’s direct infringement.

So I didn’t quote that case to discuss needle devices. I quoted it to show what the rule is about liability for inducing someone else to infringe a patent.

That case says that someone violates 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) when they actively and knowingly aid and abet another person’s direct infringement of a patent.

That rule applies regardless of the situation: if we’re talking about needle devices, resin manufacture, or seed reuse, the same rule is used. That’s how the law works.

If you’re concerned that seed reuse is somehow different than needle devices or resin manufacture, then I can quote (again) Monsanto Co. v. Parr, 545 F. Supp. 2d 836 (Dist. Ct, ND Ind 2008):

Got it?

76

So if Monsanto were to start using their Terminator gene again – the one that makes their Roundup-immune plant sterile after one generation – then that would remove your objection.

Right?

And how many times do you think you can get away with pretending I haven’t asked this question? This is the third time I’ve posted it and you have studiously avoided it each prior time.

77

Cite?

Cite?

My cite to the contrary is:

Monsanto Co. v. Parr, 545 F. Supp. 2d 836 (Dist. Ct, ND Ind 2008).

78

Once again, you fail to understand the point of an analogy.

Really.

So Microsoft created all the fonts that Windows uses and Microsoft owns a copyright on Times New Roman?

And Microsoft created the English language, and Microsoft owns a copyright on it?

And Microsoft created the Arabic numeral system and owns a copyright on it?

Utter horseshit.

Microsoft did not create the contents of its disk. Miscrosoft complied the contents of that disk by re-arranging pre-existing material into a new form. That pre-existing material takes the form of letters and other characters, words, languages, mathematical formulae and syntax in addition to many other things.

Microsoft no more created its disk than Monsanto created its plant. In both cases the creators used proprietary compilers to re-arrange and modify naturally occurring materials to encode for novel information. All that was created was the novel information. In the case of both the plant and the disk, everything else already existed.

Right. And Monsanto has a patent that bans people from making copies of their work without their permission.

No, it doesn’t. I already explained this at great length. The living organism is a tiny, tiny part of the patent.

WTF? Either you didn’t read the page you linked to, or you have no understanding of biology. Or both.

That patent has nothing to do with Round up resistant crops, the patent under discussion here. Moreover it is not a patent for “a few genes” as you seem to believe

That is a process patent for constructing and using viruses to produce chimaeras. Yes, part of the patent is a plant. But once again, you fail to understand the fact that this is a tiny part of the patent. The bulk of the patent is the use of the selectors which *created *those plants.

No, that isn’t all they did.

If you had the sense to read the full text, and a basic understanding of biology, you would note that:

  1. The chimeric gene was created, not discovered as you claim.

  2. The functional plasmid of that gene was created, not discovered.

  3. Transformed plant cells with that plasmid inserted into the nuclear DNA was created

  4. The cells were cultured and the transformed material selected for.

Amongst many, many other things.

In no sense at all was the patent granted for a pre-existing gene. The gene was created holus bolus. More importantly, the patent covers not just the plant with the gen inserted, but the entire gene creation process and the process of selecting for transformed material.

Try to understand: the plant itself is a tiny, tiny part of the patent granted. The patent application is 12 pages long,plus 8 pages of technical drawings. It covers a long and elaborate process. The end result, the plant, is a single paragraph within that patent.

How you managed to take away from this that the patent was granted primarily for the genes is beyond me. Even more astounding is that you think the genes were a natural dicovery when the fricken’ patent is actually for the creation of chimeric genes.

I love the way that someone who knowingly facilitates an illegal act for profit is “just cleaning seed”, while someone who spends 7 years in highly complex genetic work involving 3 species and two viruses is “just adding a virus gene to a plant”.

Good thing it doesn’t happen then isn’t it?

79

Absolutely, in fact given the potential environmental consequences of these genes spreading in the environment I’d fully support that.

80

No, it isn’t. That’s the problem. You don’t seem to have any idea what it is you are actually objecting to. one post you are objecting to people being unable to clean seed, then the next post to big corporations stifling small inventors and the next to the fact that Monsanto gets a patent for using naturally occuring genes.

You don;t seem to have a clue why you object to this, it’s just eeeevil.

Rubbish.

International and US Patent law is very clear: you can not patent a discovery. Anything that is the product of natural reproduction is a discovery and not an invention, and can not be patented.

For the 12th time: Monsanto has been granted patents on the application of processes. Not on natural processes. Monsanto does not have a single patent on the results of natural reproduction. All their patents are for processes used to create organisms that have never been found in nature.

Can you please, please stop making these outrageous claims that are factually not true.

PATENT LAW can not be used and has not been used to legislate the natural reproduction of plant life. It specifically excludes plants found in the natural state.

Understand?

You don’t actually seem to have any understanding of this subject at all. Both legally and scientifically, everything you say is a load of horseshit. That’s OK, we are all ignorant on many subjects, but to argue for three pages when you don’t even understand that patents don’t cover the products of natural reproduction,. That is bizarre and smacks of willful ignorance.

Cites please.

Cite for the original intention only covering mechanical devices. The first US patent was for a process of refining salt, not for a mechanical device, so that seems to put lie to your claim.

And cite for the laws being specifically written to protect small companies form larger ones.

That’s good because it doesn’t. Patent law specifically precludes anything that occurs in nature.

Well that’s just a bald assertion.

Explain to us why it is madness. Explain to me where in my chain of reasoning I went wrong. Explain to us why cleaning patented seed is fundamentally different from cleaning marijuana seed.

Making a baseless assertion that something is wrong isn’t going to convince anyone, particular given the display of ignorance of this topic that you have shown.