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Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plants

Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plants have tremendous variation, many of the progeny are different than the parents. This is the basic form of one invention. Also your comment does not make sense. Some plants are can self-pollinate and are sufficiently inbred so that they 'replicate' themselves. Many plants are out-crossers. There also exists apomixis, asexual reproduction etc. Plant are also well suited to clonal propagation. 'Natural' is a completely vague term. Many of of the crops we have bred and that are IP protected (soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton, rice) have effectively 0% chance of occurring 'naturally' in nature because they conditions for their fitness to be high enough likely would never exist.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plants have tremendous variation, many of the progeny are different than the parents. This is the basic form of one invention. I never argued that they were patenting wild plants. But bred plants existed long before they could be patented. Indeed, Monsanto did not start with "wild" strains, but with strains developed over millenia of selective breeding. Plant patents are a form of "enclosure", where a domain that was previously freely available to the public (plant breeding) becomes commercialized and monetized so only a few entities can realistically improve on plant strains without risking a lawsuit. How this benefits innovation in the broad sense is beyond me. But it's certainly good for biotech companies' bottom line.
- kickout 4y ago
  Go check out crop yields of your favorite crop for the past 20,30,50,100 years. Plant breeding and biotech have done _alot_ to reduce hunger and keep food prices low. Previous generations may have breed crops for pure survival reasons (they needed the best genetics to propagate themselves to ensure a plentiful harvest next year). I enjoy the debate around plant breeding, and there are issues with IP and how that IP is protected/enforced/interpreted. No different than many other industries. It would be difficult to adequately argue that IP in the ag sector has been not been net beneficial for most players (companies, consumers, farmers, etc.).
- kickout 4y ago
  Private plant breeding corps have only been around for <100 years (many <40). Many research universities and non-profits (CGIGAR, IRRI, CIMMYT, etc.) do plant improvement and had a huge head start. Yet these innovations didn't arise from them. I would argue they've simply been outcompeted. The market has spoken in many cases. You can still buy non-IP seed, easily. But because there is no-IP, its hard to recoup money and reinvest it thus they stagnate.
jacobr1 4y ago
Yes, these things get conflated. The one valid concern though, are adjacent fields - one using licensed, IP protected seed, and the other using a heirloom variety. There have been cases of cross-pollination where the non-IP-purchasing heirloom user is accused of using seeds by evidence of the resulting cross-pollinated results. It isn't clear to me if this a just a fear or something that has happened (the lawsuits, certainly cross-pollination occurs).
- kickout 4y ago
  If it is intentional, that's a no-no IMO (like the oft mentioned Canadian farmer). If its unintentional, there can be no claim of infringement. Lots of grey area in intent, but heirloom and landraces should have just as much freedom to operate (grow) as bred/biotech varieties

AlexandrB 4y ago

> Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plants have tremendous variation, many of the progeny are different than the parents. This is the basic form of one invention. I never argued that they were patenting wild plants. But bred plants existed long before they could be patented. Indeed, Monsanto did not start with "wild" strains, but with strains developed over millenia of selective breeding. Plant patents are a form of "enclosure", where a domain that was previously freely available to the public (plant breeding) becomes commercialized and monetized so only a few entities can realistically improve on plant strains without risking a lawsuit. How this benefits innovation in the broad sense is beyond me. But it's certainly good for biotech companies' bottom line.

kickout 4y ago
Go check out crop yields of your favorite crop for the past 20,30,50,100 years. Plant breeding and biotech have done _alot_ to reduce hunger and keep food prices low. Previous generations may have breed crops for pure survival reasons (they needed the best genetics to propagate themselves to ensure a plentiful harvest next year). I enjoy the debate around plant breeding, and there are issues with IP and how that IP is protected/enforced/interpreted. No different than many other industries. It would be difficult to adequately argue that IP in the ag sector has been not been net beneficial for most players (companies, consumers, farmers, etc.).
kickout 4y ago
Private plant breeding corps have only been around for <100 years (many <40). Many research universities and non-profits (CGIGAR, IRRI, CIMMYT, etc.) do plant improvement and had a huge head start. Yet these innovations didn't arise from them. I would argue they've simply been outcompeted. The market has spoken in many cases. You can still buy non-IP seed, easily. But because there is no-IP, its hard to recoup money and reinvest it thus they stagnate.

jacobr1 4y ago

Yes, these things get conflated. The one valid concern though, are adjacent fields - one using licensed, IP protected seed, and the other using a heirloom variety. There have been cases of cross-pollination where the non-IP-purchasing heirloom user is accused of using seeds by evidence of the resulting cross-pollinated results. It isn't clear to me if this a just a fear or something that has happened (the lawsuits, certainly cross-pollination occurs).

kickout 4y ago
If it is intentional, that's a no-no IMO (like the oft mentioned Canadian farmer). If its unintentional, there can be no claim of infringement. Lots of grey area in intent, but heirloom and landraces should have just as much freedom to operate (grow) as bred/biotech varieties