GREENPEACE PROTESTS AGAINST EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE'S ILLEGAL PATENTS ON LIFE

11 April 2000

MUNICH -– Greenpeace, together with the German farmer’s organisation ABL, today protested in Munich against European Patent Office (EPO) plans to grant Monsanto patents on numerous varieties of plants. This is the first time such patents have been approved. Twenty Greenpeace activists and 20 farmers dumped a heap of manure at the EPO office entrance.

"If patents on plant varieties are authorised, farmers can pack up, because everything from seeds to food products will belong to biotech industry," said Georg Jansen, director of ABL. "Things shouldn’t be allowed to get that far. Farmers, not some patent owner, must be able to decide what they plant and what happens to harvest."

The protest is in support of an official objection filed by Greenpeace against the EPO’s decision in 1996 to grant Monsanto patents on genetically engineered food crops. Even though patents on seed and plant varieties are against the European patent rules, the EPO granted Monsanto full property rights to GE varieties of maize, wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton, sugar beet, rape, sunflowers, potatoes, tobacco, tomatoes, poplars, pines, grapes and apples. Legal experts, including the German minister of justice, Ms Däubler-Gmelin, have questioned the legality of this kind of patent.

"The EPO is opening the floodgates to the genetic engineering industry," says Imke Ide of Greenpeace. "If the EPO rejects Greenpeace’s objection today it will set a dangerous precedent in allowing the privatisation of life by the biotech industry."

Patents on plant varieties affect not only genetically modified plants. Biotech companies in the US have already patented conventional plant varieties and have applied for similar patents in Europe. "EPO is playing a dangerous game, said Ide. "By having these patents the industry can soon decide what food ends up on our plates. There should be no patents on life."

In 1995 the EPO ruled in favour of Greenpeace on Greenpeace’s opposition to a similar patent claim by Plant Genetic Systems.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Imke Ide, GE campaigner Greenpeace Germany, +49 171 8780 834
- Michael Hopf, Press Officer, Greenpeace Germany, +49 171 8780 835
- Benedikt Haerlin, Campaign Coordinator, Greenpeace International, +49 171 8780 813
- Mika Railo, Greenpeace International Press Officer, +31 20 5249 548

Follow Greenpeace's GE campaign on the web: www.greenpeace.org/~geneng