[pp.int.general] patents for seeds

[Reinier Bakels]

>I think I should give a little background on Monsanto here. There is a
Interesting!
> brilliant US documentary entitled "The Corporation", examining the
> aspects of large corporations: their actions, their powers, and the
> (un)intended consequences. In it, they go on about pesticides and
> genetically modified organisms (GMOs, as they are often called).
> Monsanto, during the Vietnam War, provided the US with a pesticide
> advertised to kill off dense vegetation (Vietnamese forests). The
> unintended consequence of this product ranged from illness, death, and
> even _birth defects_. Needless to say, Monsanto was sued by Vietnamese
> soldiers and mothers of deformed infants.

Incidentially, I have been to the Ho Chi Minh City American War Crimes 
Museum. That is, again this city is callend Saigon, and only the 
comglomerate with suburbs is called "Ho Chi Minh City". The museum was 
renamed just "War Crimes Museum", and when I was there (1997 I guess) it was 
again renamed to "War Remnants Museum". Reason? They wat to make money from 
American tourists!

> It should be without say that Monsanto, as well as most GMO-producers,
> are huge players within the patent community.

I have been told they are among the rudest too. While MS attorneys afaik 
tend to play down conflicts in public, Monsato's attorneys allegedly are 
loud, offensive and rude.

> Anther example from The Corporation: A Canadian farmer, prepared to reap
> the year's harvest of wheat, was sued by Monsanto. Why? A trucker with a
> poorly-sealed load of patented Monsanto seed had cross-bred with the
> farmer's germinating wheat. The court ruled that the farmer not only
> owed Monsanto that year's crop and an unfathomable amount of money, but
> what seed he had stored up from that crop.
> On a side note: Indian tranditionalist farmers were, at one point,
> unable to store or trade their seed (within their community) because a
> company claimed the originating rice patties were the company's
> "intellectual property."

"Traditional knowledge" is a related, vast area of injustice.
When I graduated in physics, a long time ago, I specialised in optics. My 
universities optics' textbook explains all kind of imaging instruments and 
their lense systems, including the human eye, in an equally critical fashion 
("good work in chromatic aberration compensation!" (dear lord)).
<cynical>I guess todays direction is that hospitals get sued for 
("contributory") patent infringement by new-born babies using *patented* 
vision technology. Next step is that mothers get arrested. Which is merely a 
matter of justice, because lots of retired people depend on pensions based 
on the rent of - Monsanto. Monsanto is only cruel in order to avoid other 
cruelty ...
Perhaps we should propoe *abortion* of patent-infringing babies. That will 
mobilise the pro-life movement. Isn't that a wonderful combination?
</cynical>
reinier