{"id":17,"date":"2013-02-16T10:12:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T10:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/?p=17"},"modified":"2013-04-01T11:13:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T15:13:08","slug":"monsanto-manufactures-fud-about-seed-ownership-could-lose-case-to-farmer-bowman-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/monsanto-manufactures-fud-about-seed-ownership-could-lose-case-to-farmer-bowman-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Monsanto FUD about seed ownership: Farmer Bowman could win back natural seed rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nMonsanto is always hiding behind something, starving children\r\n(while selling their parents crops that fail all at once),\r\nthe Great God Efficiency, or now, medical research.\r\nWill Clarence Thomas recuse himself this time on this\r\nSupreme Court seed patent,\r\nBowman v Monsanto<\/a>?\r\nWill Monsanto manufacture enough Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)\r\nto win anyway, or will the other SCOTUS judges rule wisely this time?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAndrew Pollack wrote for the New York Times 13 February 2013,\r\n\r\nFarmer’s Supreme Court Challenge Puts Monsanto Patents at Risk<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMonsanto says that a victory for Mr. Bowman would allow farmers to\r\nessentially save seeds from one year’s crop to plant the next year,\r\neviscerating patent protection. In Mr. Bowman’s part of Indiana, it\r\nsays, a single acre of soybeans can produce enough seeds to plant 26\r\nacres the next year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSuch a ruling would “devastate innovation in\r\nbiotechnology,” the company wrote in its brief.\r\n“Investors are unlikely to make such investments if they\r\ncannot prevent purchasers of living organisms containing their\r\ninvention from using them to produce unlimited copies.”…\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe decision might also apply to live vaccines, cell lines and DNA\r\nused for research or medical treatment, and some types of\r\nnanotechnology.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nYeah, yeah, it could.\r\nBut it would be quite easy for SCOTUS to say this ruling is about seeds.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nMany organizations have filed briefs in support of Monsanto’s\r\nposition — universities worried about incentives for research,\r\nmakers of laboratory instruments and some big farmer groups like the\r\nAmerican Soybean Association, which say seed patents have spurred\r\ncrop improvements. The Justice Department is also supporting\r\nMonsanto’s argument.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd the American Soybean Association represents big growers\r\nwho plant Monsanto seeds.\r\nToo bad they don’t realize they’d make more profits if they\r\ndidn’t have to pay for those seeds every year even when\r\nMonsanto jacks up the price\r\n(\r\n43% in 2009<\/a>), plus pay for\r\nthe expensive pesticides that go on them,\r\nand the expensive huge tractor equipment to farm at the scale\r\nMonsanto demands.\r\nAnother group that should know better weighs in:\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBSA\/The Software Alliance, which represents companies like Apple and\r\nMicrosoft, said in a brief that a decision against Monsanto might\r\n“facilitate software piracy on a broad scale” because\r\nsoftware can be easily replicated. But it also said that a decision\r\nthat goes too far the other way could make nuisance software patent\r\ninfringement lawsuits too easy to file.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd SCOTUS could say this decision applies only to seeds.\r\nAlthough software patents could use some massive reforming too.\r\nI say that, and I have several software patents.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe story finally gets to the point:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSome critics of biotechnology say that a victory for Mr. Bowman\r\ncould weaken what they see as a stranglehold that Monsanto and some\r\nother big biotech companies have over farmers, which they say has\r\nled to rising seed prices and the lack of high-yielding varieties\r\nthat are not genetically engineered.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPatents have “given seed companies enormous power, and it’s\r\ncome at the detriment of farmers,” said Bill Freese, science\r\npolicy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, which was an author\r\nof a brief on the side of Mr. Bowman. “Seed-saving would act\r\nas a much needed restraint on skyrocketing biotech seed\r\nprices.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFarmers who plant seeds with Monsanto’s technology must sign an\r\nagreement not to save the seeds, which means they must buy new seeds\r\nevery year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMonsanto has a reputation for vigorously protecting its intellectual\r\nproperty.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd that’s the question, isn’t it?\r\nShould a single company be allowed to patent seeds for most of the\r\nworld’s corn, soybeans, peanuts, and cotton?\r\nShould any company be allowed to do that?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nI say no.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt’s curious how the supposedly objective New York Times not-so-subtly\r\ntakes the side of Monsanto (yet another example of how there really\r\nis no such thing as reportorial objectivity, and pretending there is\r\nis harmful).\r\nLet’s look farther afield.\r\nthe Japan Times carried a story from the Washington Post 11 February 2013,\r\n\r\nU.S. top court to weigh biotech patent limits:\r\nFirm sues over ‘copies’ grown from seeds of proprietary plants<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFarmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who\r\nstands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens\r\nMonsanto’s pursuit of new products it says will “feed the\r\nworld.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Hell’s fire,” said the 75-year-old self-described\r\n“eccentric old bachelor,” who farms 300 acres (120\r\nhectares) of land passed down from his father. Bowman sat in a\r\nrecliner with his boots off, wearing reading glasses that still had\r\nthe tag that once held them to a drugstore rack, and a Monsanto\r\npromotional cap on his balding head. “I am less than a drop in\r\nthe bucket.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSee the difference between that and what the NY Times wrote about his land?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWith his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh\r\nBowman said, “I’m not even big enough to be called a\r\nfarmer.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd that’s a very large part of the problem with Monsanto.\r\nTheir worship of the Great God Efficiency that says anybody\r\nwho doesn’t farm thousands of acres of the same exact commodity\r\ncrops Monsanto has patented isn’t a farmer.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nBack to the Japan Times\/Wapo article:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“Inventors are unlikely to make such investments if they\r\ncannot prevent purchasers of living organisms containing their\r\ninvention from using them to produce unlimited copies,”\r\nMonsanto stated.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nBowman said the company’s claim that its patent protection would be\r\neviscerated — should he win — is\r\n“ridiculous.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Monsanto should not be able, just because they’ve got\r\nmillions and millions of dollars to spend on legal fees, to try to\r\nterrify farmers into making them obey their agreements by massive\r\nforce and threats,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAin’t that the truth!\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEven the NY Times concludes:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMr. Bowman said that before his case, Vernon Hugh Bowman v. Monsanto,\r\n11-796, was taken pro bono by\r\n\r\nMark P. Walters<\/a>\r\nand other lawyers from the firm of Frommer Lawrence & Haug, he had\r\nspent $31,000 on legal fees and handled much of the legal research\r\nhimself, using a computer at the library because he does not own\r\none. He said he never considered settling because he thought he was\r\nin the right.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I was prepared to let them run over me,” Mr. Bowman\r\nsaid, “but I wasn’t getting out of the road.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThere’s a wise attorney!\r\nWin or lose, Mark P. Walters will have a SCOTUS case on his resume,\r\nand he’s fighting for a worthy cause.\r\n<\/p>

\r\nAnd there’s a brave farmer!\r\nSure, he can afford to do this in a way most farmers can’t:\r\nhe has no family to support or whom somebody might threaten.\r\nAnd he for sure isn’t a revolutionary: he still wants to use\r\nthose poison-making Monsanto seeds (the bT gene in them makes\r\nthe soybean plant itself create a pesticide), presumably\r\ngrowing them using more poison pesticides.\r\nBut he’s still willing to stand up against one of the most\r\npowerful companies in the world.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhat will\r\n\r\nformer Monsanto attorney and now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas<\/a> say?\r\nMonsanto says about a previous case,\r\n\r\nPioneer Hi-Bred International v. J.E.M Ag Supply<\/a>,\r\ndecided 10 December 2001,\r\nthat\r\n\r\nJustice Thomas indeed wrote the majority opinion<\/a>.\r\nMonsanto makes excuses that Thomas hadn’t been employed with Monsanto\r\nsince the 1970s and it was a 6 to 2 decision.\r\nHm, there are nine SCOTUS Justices, not 8.\r\nPoliticol News wrote 21 May 2011 about yet another case,\r\n\r\nMonsanto- v. Geertson Seed Farms<\/a>,\r\n\r\nClarence Thomas-Monsanto Lawyer-Conflict of Interest<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAnother judge Charles Breyer who ruled in the original 2007 case is the\r\nbrother of Stephen Breyer and has recused himself in the case.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nI say Thomas also should have recused himself from that case and he should\r\nrecuse himself from this Hugh Bowman case.\r\nAnd the rest of the judges should rule against Monsanto.\r\nWhat do you say?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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