[pp.int.general] patents for seeds

[Amelia Andersdotter]

2009/8/15 Reinier Bakels <r.bakels at planet.nl>:
> While some of you are perhaps primarily interested in copyright or software
> patents, such developments show that there are *structural* problems in
> these fields  - presumably to be classified under the common denominator of
> smart "rent seeking" action by major American (but also Swiss) players.
> ("Rent seeking" is a term for lobbying by firms to get legislation that
> allows them to make more money without producing more).
>

I read a Swedish state official investigation on patents on
biotechnological inventions (SOU 2008:20) yesterday, aimed at
investigation the need to update Swedish patent law with respect to
EPC (which Sweden signed in 2006) and EC/98/44 which _surprisingly_
(but only briefly) takes the standpoint that licensing mechanisms in
the fields of, among others plants, seem to function well so therefore
there is no need to supervise the systems.

Ironically, they also spend the better part of one chapter complaining
that scientists and researchers don't bother with getting licenses
_or_ patenting their inventions to any larger extent.

But well.

> For those of you who read Dutch I can cut&paste the articles.
>

Please do!

-- 
Amelia Andersdotter
Lissabon-MEP

+46 738436779
www.ameliatillbryssel.se