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2.
Broad species patents
By
1990, 50% of plant patent applications in Europe were coming
from just eight multinational corporations, and a third from
just three companies: Monsanto, Ciba-Geigy and Lubrizol. (1)
Since 1985, these
companies have been pushing the boundaries of patent law even
further, staking territorial claims to cover entire species
of plant and animal, consolidating their dominant position
as a means to block research and competition.(2)
According to the Wall Street Journal, in the United States
at least one company has been created whose "main business
is buying up broad patents and then suing other companies
for alleged infringements". (3)
- In 1994, the
company Agracetus was awarded a European patent which covered
all genetically engineered soybeans. Rival companies, including
Monsanto, were outraged and immediately challenged the patent,
saying that it would result in just one company having an
effective monopoly over all GE soybeans. Monsanto argued
that "the alleged invention lacks an inventive step" and
was "not ... novel". In the end the solution for Monsanto
was to buy Agracetus, together with the patent, and drop
the complaint. As well as the patent on soya, Monsanto now
holds a patent in both Europe and the US on all genetically
engineered cotton (4)
- Plant Genetic
Systems, a biotech company now owned by Aventis, has been
granted a patent in the United States for all genetically
engineered plants containing the Bt toxin. A patent has
been taken out in Europe by the American company Mycogen
which covers the insertion of "any insecticidal gene in
any plant." (5)
- A patent has
been issued to Sungene in the United States for a variety
of sunflower which has a high oleic acid content. Not only
does the patent include the genes involved in the oleic
acid content, but also to the characteristic itself. Sungene
has notified other breeders that the development of any
variety of sunflower high in oleic acid will be considered
an infringement of the patent. (6)
It is extraordinary
that a company can make a single genetic alteration to a plant,
and claim private ownership to it as their invention, when the
very plants that are being engineered result from thousands
of years of careful selection and breeding by farmers around
the world.
"The granting
of patents covering all genetically engineered varieties of
a species . . . puts in the hands of a single inventor the
possibility to control what we grow on our farms and in our
gardens. At the stroke of a pen, the research of countless
farmers and scientists has potentially been negated in a single,
legal act of economic highjack."
—Dr. Geoffrey
Hawtin, Director General of the International Plant
Genetic Resources Institute (7)
References:
1.
Hobbelink H. (1991) Biotechnology and the Future of World
Agriculture. Zed Books, London
2.
GRAIN (1998) Patenting, Piracy and Perverted Promises, briefing
published by Genetic Resources Action International. Barcelona,
Spain
3.
Lambert W., Hayes A.S. (30 May 1990) Investing in patents
to file suits is curbed. Wall Street Journal
4.
GRAIN (1998) op cit.
RAFI (1999) Bioprospecting
/Biopiracy and Indigenous Peoples. Communiqué published
by the Rural Advancement Foundation International
Powledge F. (July/August
1995) Who Owns Rice and Beans? BioScience, pp.440-444
Shiva V. (1998)
Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Green books,
p.58
5.
GRAIN (1998) op cit.
RAFI (1999) op
cit.
6.
Shiva V. (1998) op cit.
7.
Quoted in Shand H. (1994) Patenting the Planet. Multinational
Monitor, p.13
Also RAFI (1994)
Species patent on transgenic soybeans granted to transnational
chemical giant W.R. Grace. RAFI Communiqué, 1994
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