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> If your intellectual property blows through the wind and contaminates your neighbors, you should be liable, not them. More importantly, seeds should not be c

• gruez 9y ago
  >More importantly, seeds should not be considered as intellectual property why? Most farmers do not replant their seeds (wouldn't work because the seeds are hybrids). do you oppose patenting lifeforms on principle?
  • tom_mellior 9y ago
    > Most farmers do not replant their seeds And many do, for seeds where it works. > do you oppose patenting lifeforms on principle? I oppose applying patents in a way that violates a "first sale doctrine" kind of thing. That is, once you have sold me seeds, they should be my property, and you should not have a say in how I use them. (Edited to add: Even if, yes, in a certain deliberately technical sense, the DNA in those seeds amounts to "derivative works" or "copies" of the DNA contained in what you sold me.) If that makes patents on lifeforms worthless, that's fine with me. But no, "no patents on lifeforms" is not the principle I start from.
• hedora 9y ago
  Arguably, the first sale doctrine should apply. Once you sell pretty much anything except GMO seed and software, you have exhausted your patent rights, and the purchaser now has a right to use your patent, and selling the thing transfers the patent licenses. Since the seed is capable of cross-pollination when used as intended, the patent rights would extend transitively to the pollen, downstream plants, etc.