Anyone who believes in the USA legal system is an insane fool. I no longer recognize our so-called rule of law. It is a criminal enterprise. I consider myself an outlaw now in order to live in an ethical manner. Our whole system has been hijacked by the criminally insane. Good luck to our future. There is no way to fight this madness within the system. I am so glad I never had children.

And by the way, who the fuck ever came up with the concept that you could patent plants in any way shape or form. Man sure the fuck didn't invent or create plants, they were here long before our sorry species set foot upon this precious planet. For a species that considers itself intelligent, it sure the hell ain't.

And by the way, who the fuck ever came up with the concept that you could patent plants in any way shape or form.

.. or make certain plants illegal ..

You don't wanna mess with them major seed producers man, they're businessman after all.

I wonder how much they paid the members of the Supreme Court to sell out their own country.

you can't patent a wild plant, but if you generate your own domesticated strain - either through traditional cross-breeding or through the more modern genetic engineering - they you have the right to patent your invention, just like anyone else.

Traditional cross-breeding isn't really "inventing" anything. It is simply coercing nature to do something. And where does the "right" to patent such an "invention" actually come from anyway? Is that some sort of natural right?

to patent a seed you have to have genetically modified it and not used general hybridization. The scary thing is most of these seeds especialy corn and soy are nutritionally dangerous because of higher levels of carcinogens or other chemicals that interfere with nutrient co-factors.

Cross-breeding _is_ inventing, particularly in that the breeder chooses which organisms to breed based on what traits are desirable. If you develop a new apple or orange or pluot or tangello via breeding plants, you have the legal right to patent the product of your breeding and then require royalties from anyone who wants to grow and sell it. So the "Red Delicious" apple was patented back in the 19th century just like the "Honey crisp" apple has been patented in the 21st. That is no different than patenting a "roundup ready" or a "Bt" plant that has been generated by genetic engineering, which is furthermore the same as patenting a medicine that you produced in a genetically engineered bacterium (which you can also patent).

As for the right, it's simply US patent law, no more, no less.

If so we can patent Air and Water also, right? If we can come up with a new water or air molecule. You stupid fucker wake up....this is a slippery slope that man will never win.

wow, you're nice.

I believe he was rudely trying to express the idea that the public good and welfare in the case of subsistence should supersede patenting and private ownership- particularly given the 8,000+ years of farming tradition that involves saving seeds from year to year crops. In this case, the larger legal question shouldn't have been patent law but how saving seeds fits into a broad system of subsistence and the potential harm from banning seed saving on society. Yes, the Supreme Court correctly interpreted patent law, but they chose to rule very narrowly instead of considering the potential harm of restricting crops to yearly manufactured seeds. Telling a computer company they can't copy software won't potentially result in mass starvation if something happens to the original software. The issues to be considered are extremely different and the patent law they ruled under was never intended to regulate our entire food system.

This ruling does not prohibit the practice of saving seeds or resale of those seeds - it only prohibits the practice of saving _Monsanto_ seeds _after_ you have signed a contract with Monsanto where _you_ agree that you won't save those seeds. You are still free to save and re-sell _any other_ seeds you want. The 8,000 years of tradition in farming can live on - it is not dead.
This is not complicated! If I agree to sell you something, and you sign an agreement that says that you will only use it once, and then you use it twice, I get to sue you for breach of contract. That's a pretty fundamental principle of contracts, and you can't throw it out just because this particular instance has some consequences that a lot of people don't like. This case is also crystal clear - the farmer knew exactly what he was doing and did it on purpose so that he could explicitly avoid paying Monsanto the royalties for their seeds. The broader consequences surrounding Monsanto's patents or near-monopoly in the soybean seed market are _less important_ than the fundamentals of contracts, patents, and intellectual property rights, without which there would be no innovation in farming or anything else - and then you would see some _real_ global starvation.

Actually you seem to miss the most important part and what makes this a particularly heinous action on the part of both Monsanto and SCOTUS: the grain elevator doesn't know which seeds are Monsanto and which are not. From this ruling it appears that anyone who buys seeds from a grain elevator with the intent to grow crop (as has been done for 8000 years) leaves oneself open to action from Monsanto. I would certainly not put it past Monsanto to have their people toss a few handfuls of seed into just about any elevator they wanted to. I'm sure their gene markers would only spread to a greater and greater proportion of the current and subsequent crops. That's um... cross-pollination. Nature doing what it does.
Oh and thank you Monsanto for the round-up resistant weeds...

I wonder, nice idea for a Scify movie: "they" discover that round-up ready** soybeans reduce sperm counts in males. but the e-vile corporation already knew that, but decided that since liberals eat more soy than republicans...
It would have to be an independent movie.

Hey, just wanted to thank you for that last thought (about sperm count), as well as alien99's reference to the French study. I'm going to use these posts as an introduction to today's AP Biology lesson about how science can be badly mis-interpreted. FYI, somebody _actually_ did a research study on the effects of roundup ready soy on the development of mouse testicles! Conclusion: the GM soy had no effect on mouse testicle development. Sounds crazy, huh? Read about it here:

Food Chem Toxicol. 2004

Jan;42(1):29-36.
A generational study
of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans on mouse fetal, postnatal, pubertal and adult testicular development.
Brake DG, Evenson DP.

AP Biology, eh? Well, "professor" why don't you go ahead and tell us your name, course ID, and the University at which you "teach" so that we can all verify for ourselves whether or not these alleged credentials, that you propose, have any merit.

Go ahead, we're all waiting...

(this should be good, if only just to see what sort of colorful excuse he comes up with for why he "can't give us" that information. lol)

No, the grain elevator doesn't know which seeds are which, but the grain elevator _owner_ does, and can choose whether or not to fill his elevator with Monsanto seeds or not. If I were a grain elevator operator, I'd be making sure that I didn't sell any of my seeds to someone who planned to plant them so that I would be protected from Monsanto - or I'd be making sure that I didn't buy any seeds that had Monsanto's technology in them.
That being said, isn't there a business opportunity for a silo operator to start running a "Monsanto-free" grain elevator? Wouldn't said grain operator have a competitive advantage in the market for selling seeds to farmers who want to grow crop? If I were a grain operator and such a plan were profitable, that's exactly what I'd be doing. This is what we call a free market solution to the problem, and it doesn't require overturning the entire intellectual property system that is essential to our economy.

Do you really think it would be in Monsanto's financial interest to spike grain elevators with their seeds? Every field growing Monsanto technology seeds is a field that could end up breaking Monsanto's patent rights (by failing to defend them), so every field growing Monsanto crops means that Monsanto has to pay more lawyers and cuts into profits. When you already control 90% of the legal market, you don't need to resort to such nefarious measures.

BTW, I view the possibility of the roundup ready genes spreading to other plant species as a potentially huge disaster - but it sure would kill Monsanto's technology in the marketplace. Who would pay extra for roundup ready seeds when you couldn't use roundup any more to keep the weeds out of your fields?

He didn't sign any contract with Monsanto. He bought seed intended to be eaten by livestock to plant in his field (he should have know that the mixed seed most likely would include Monsanto patent seeds). It is farmers who have since before Monsanto started patenting GMO seeds have been saving seed from year to year and whose crops have been raped by Monsanto pollen that I really feel sorry for.

"tleete" - I find myself in disagreement with part of your language in this last statement, specifically the "..._less important_ than..." delination. I think that " The broader consequences surrounding Monsanto's patents or near-monopoly in the soybean seed market are" extremely important as many of our peers herein have expressed. It just seems that we all must resist conflating these issues and thereby negating the equally importiant issues concerning the proper "...fundamentals of contracts, patents, and intellectual property rights, without which there would be no innovation in farming or anything else.."
I hope this doesn't come across as being too picky, but I don't discern from your discourse on this topic that you believe that the said "broad consequences" are unimportant by any measure.

The broad consequences of a market monopoly are always important, but let's separate our judgement of the monopoly from our judgement of the patent rights. While the patent rights make the monopoly possible, they don't _cause_ the monopoly - the monopoly is caused (in this case) by the fact that one company has produced a product that is so popular that it has swept away the competition. My point is that if we eliminate patent rights just to deal with a single instance of a single company that gained a monopoly with a patented product, it's like burning down the barn because we are unhappy with one cow. We should deal with this individual monopoly using the market tools that exist rather than re-structuring the entire market.

Actually neither the "Red Delicious" nor the "Honey Crisp" was "invented". Every apple gives you a few seeds, usually about 5. If you plant those 5 seeds you will get 5 completely different apple trees. Unless you are extremely lucky all 5 will taste lousy, or taste great but be mushy, or taste lousy and be mushy. Apples are just about the most genetically diverse plant on the planet. Every Red Delicious and Honey Crisp apple comes from a branch grafted onto a stock apple tree. You might recall the tale of Johnny Appleseed. Real guy, wandered the Midwest planting thousands of apple trees in the 1800's. He had no idea what kind of apples would result but most of them ended up in hard cider so it didn't really matter. (he did it to acquire land via homesteading.) Anyway, if you do happen to plant an apple seed and get a yummy fruit, by all means, name it, graft it, and sell the little trees. But patent it? BS.

Bt potatoes are a travesty, they combine a naturally occurring bacterium to the potato that will invariably lead to Bt resistant bugs that will - in addition to rendering the Bt potato to its place in the evil annals of history - destroy the organic potato industry. Wonderful, so Monsanto A-holes get to make millions now and in a few years we wont be able to buy organic taters at any price.

No it is not a natural right--it is a Constitutional right--it is right in the Constitution, which also provides that the federal government has the right to buy any patent deemed important for national defense for $25,000, which corrected for inflation since 1789 would be somewhere between $5 million and $10 million.

please direct me to the section in the constitution that allows patents of life?
Clearly though, the gubmint ought spend the 25K and take the patent from Monsanto. perhaps they could then sell those seeds back to Monsanto for a million dollars apiece. Including all of the seeds that "got away". Maybe any old farmer who could find a seed with Monsanto's marker could get a huge finders fee from the gubmint - who would pass that charge on to Monsanto because THEY SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR IT!

It's called law.

just because it's the law now doesn't make it right or moral. apparently the Supreme Court voted on it so it is "the law" but it's sick nonetheless and they should be ashamed of themselves pandering to corporate interests.

Its called a corporate bribe

Right and those with the gold make those "golden rules" we call the law. American are so conditioned to obey that fucking law mindlessly and teach their children to recite the pledge of allegiance every day, obey the policeman, go to church, don't question authority, blah, blah all that bull shit.

Thank You. Obedience is one of the worst human traits of them all. Gave Hitler a free pass as it does to his successors, who are obviously everywhere nowadays.
If nobody would stop at the oil cartels' stop signs, we could save millions of tons of CO2. Smart people build roundabouts, but they will be outlawed soon anyways. Both, the smart and the roundabouts.

What is called law? You're not answering any of my questions, so why even bother. "Rights" are not law. Rights are presumably protected by law.

The law is nothing if it is to protect the right of property of the wealthy over the right of a homeless person.

The law is an ass.

LINK PLEASE....

So profound and I'm so afraid. U R a one hit wonder, fer shure!

It's called "reading comprehension." (BTW)

Yes but explain how they got the right to force farmers to buy their crap? What happened to saving your own seeds for next the season? I hope more farmers realize how stupid they have been for even using one ounce of fertilizer or insecticide, going organic saves the land and is cheaper, tell Monsanto to shove their round up their asses, oh how I hate B of A, Chase, Wells Fargo, Chevron and Monsanto like US corporations and can't wait to see their demise in the hands of We the People.

Monsanto won a case against a farmer whose crop was contaminated by wind-blown pollen from a near-by field planted with Monsanto seed grown plants. Monsanto won that case. Google it.

I guess Monsanto should have been taken to court for trespassing... and the damaged caused to the existing crops... which were obliterated by the Monsanto monsters cross pollinating with the farmer's crops. Maybe it should have been a shotgun wedding... this sneaking into the neighbor's farm and screwing her daughters...

In the case we are referring to, those "Monsanto monsters" were welcomed with open arms. The farmer whose crops were accidentally cross-pollinated by Monsanto crops were _specifically_ replanted and used by that farmer, which is why Monsanto won their case. Note that they did not sure the farmer over the accidentally contaminated crop - they sued over the crop planted the following year, which was >98% roundup ready crop. That was no accident, and clearly the farmer wanted the roundup ready crops. If this was a "shotgun wedding", then the farmer wasn't pointing is gun at _Monsanto_...

The farmer whose crop was pollinated by Monsanto crop didn't find out that his crop was Round up Ready until Monsanto sued him. I still say the farmer's crop was raped by the pollen from the Monsanto crop--against the will of the farmer--who lost his entire line of heirloom crop.

I, for one, would like to read about the case you are referencing.....do you have any cites or refereences?

read the wikipedia link posted above, or the wikipedia page on Monsanto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... for a better description. You'll read that the farmer in question (Schmeiser) suspected that his crop was contaminated with roundup ready plants, so he sprayed roundup to kill all the non-resistant plants. He then harvested the roundup ready seed and specifically planted it the following season. This is when Monsanto sued, because the farmer had taken active steps to select for and plant roundup ready seeds. The fact that the specifically planted crop was 98% roundup ready was the smoking gun cited by the courts in their rulings in support of Monsanto - proof that the farmer _acted_ to violate Monsanto's patent rights.

It is interesting to note that a common tactic of the paid shill (among others) is to edit Wikipedea topics to suit their own agenda. This is known as "Astroturfing". Wikipedea even has a whole page dedicated to the subject of Astroturfing. Check it out for yourselves, folks.

...and, as you've probably guessed by now, folks, this Ethan character is likely a paid shill as well, being that he is always all too quick to jump to the defense of everything that paid shill #1 (tleete) says. Coincidence? Not likely. Paid shills usually work in pairs, or small groups in order to create the illusion that others genuinely agree with what they have to say.

"tleete" - Yep......those facts are stubborn things
(:-)
I suspected that was the Canadian pollen case being taken out of context. It would appear that Grace's rape case was am imaginary felony in this garden of weeds. Maybe us fact shills should investigate rather or not bull$hit is a genetic mutation.
As Usual,
EA.

...and, as you've probably guessed by now, folks, this Ethan character is likely a paid shill as well, being that he is always all too quick to jump to the defense of everything that paid shill #1 (tleete) says. Coincidence? Not likely. Paid shills usually work in pairs, or small groups in order to create the illusion that others genuinely agree with what they have to say.

"Ethan" is obviously a much more skilled and experienced paid corporate shill than his coworker "tleete" is, as Ethan knows what to say in order to sound authentic and intellectual. Whereas "tleete" sounds like a novice who sticks out like a sore thumb. Perhaps he's still in training and has yet advanced past "meme patrol"

that is this case

No, it isn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Monsanto didn't win, the group that sued Monsanto lost because they had no case. Monsanto had no intention of suing people that don't use roundup. http://woodprairiefarm.comm...

They can't force you to buy their seeds. But they can refuse to sell you their seeds unless you agree to _not_ replant or resell seeds you got from your crop. So you are free to _not_ buy Monsanto seeds all you like. If you want to save your seeds for next season, don't buy from Monsanto - duh.

Purely a corrupt law lobbied into existence by greed.
It should be that If you cant come up with the original design, you have no claim to patent anything youve piggy backed on nature for. Plain and simple..
Those that believe Monsanto patent lawyers are grossly ignorant to the destruction thats occuring in agriculture, the environment, and government by letting a company coerce its way through business and public life.
Just because a large corporation can buy laws into existence doesnt make them right.
rbgh, a Monsanto creation was deemed safe by the FDA after review of Monsantos safety studies. So what is it now? A dangerous product banned most everywhere, so much so that companies even market the fact they dont use it. Look at Monsantos history, there are numerous cases like this, all with the same outcome - banned or discontinued with failing sales once the true research got out on the dangers of continued use.
Believing in Monsanto is akin to you taking a convicted child molestors word for it that he is reformed and the first place he wants to start on his new path of self transformation is as a teachers assistant at your daughters school.

Let's take it to the next level: 'Believing in Monsanto is akin to believe Adolf Hitler that he will bring peace and prosperity for all. Aryans that is.