23 ms·

“Open source” seeds loosen Big Ag’s grip on farmers

708 points by dnetesn 4y ago

tough 4y ago
Love to see it
boomboomsubban 4y ago
Do plants engineered to not produce plantable seeds have some kind of advantage, or is it purely so the seed producers can continue selling the seeds? I remember when I first heard of roundup ready crops as a child, that aspect of it completely baffled me both in why and how they would make plants not replantable.
- boppo1 4y ago
  >have some kind of advantage Pretty sure it's so you can't collect the newly produced seeds and sell them on the black market to people next season. Basically what you said, but it's not just about preventing people from 're-using' what they bought, but also preventing them from providing it to others.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  They are far less likely to spread novel genes around the environment.
- CommitSyn 4y ago
  I believe it's the engineering of other aspects (drought tolerance, growth factors, etc) that make them incapable of producing viable seed - not that the only engineering is to make them unable to put out fertile seed.
- pkphilip 4y ago
  The only advantage is that these companies can force the farmers to keep buying seeds from them. It is the susbscription based revenue model for agriculture :) https://borgenproject.org/terminator-seeds-threaten-sustainable-farming/ https://borgenproject.org/terminator-seeds-threaten-sustaina...
- igvadaimon 4y ago
  They get unique characteristics, like all the tomatoes look identical and have long shelf life which is important for customers because they "eat with their eyes". They also taste like shit but who cares, right?
- linuxftw 4y ago
  The seeds produced are often plantable. For many seeds, especially GMO seeds, the grower needs to acquire a license to the seeds and agrees not to save seeds from planted crops (as you suspect, to ensure income for the seed producer). Other seeds are patented varieties. Typically these are 'hybrids' which are a cross of two varieties of the same plant for whatever specific features they select. These seeds won't 'breed true' so the offspring will likely not be identical to the parents. From what I understand, GMO crops won't have a very stable lineage. Nature tends to select against the genetic modifications, but I do believe most GMOs are replantable today. This is not the case for GMO salmon, which they are trying to sterilize.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Why would hybrids have to be patented? You are confusing separate things here.
    - linuxftw 4y ago
      Hybrids don't have to be patented, but if they're new varieties, they certainly can be. Similarly, new varieties that aren't necessarily hybrids (eg, once were hybrids and now are stable) can also be patented.
- a_bonobo 4y ago
  There are no plants engineered to not produce plantable seeds. There's a long-standing moratorium on terminator genes that is generally observed. The reason why you have to rebuy your seeds from the companies is because of hybrid vigor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis It's still not 100% understand how this actually happens (heaps models and results exist), but when you cross two reasonably distantly related parents, the offspring F1 will outperform both. However, if you then backcross the offspring again, you'll lose that hybrid vigor, and your F2 behaves like crap again (often the F2 is also all over the shop in the phenotype, which makes harvesting annoying with different flowering times, different sizes etc.) That's the whole business model of the seed companies: keep on remaking F1s, sell them. There's nothing nefarious or GM about this, it goes back to the 50s and 60s with Norman Borlaug making hybrid F1s in wheat triggering the green revolution.
  - bitshiftfaced 4y ago
    I never knew about this. That's interesting. So then hybrid vigor is the reason farmers don't grow their own seeds, which contradicts the article. Obviously the OSS people would know this, so then the purpose must be more about encouraging plant diversity and allowing more companies to sell these varieties to farmers.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Hybrid vigor is also why eugenic nightmares are misconstructed. If some nefarious dictator wanted genetic supersoldiers, he'd breed them by hybridizing sickly inbred strains, and then prohibiting the supersoldiers from themselves reproducing.
      - trallnag 4y ago
        can you explain further or maybe link to something? Eugenics can also mean eradicating certain unwanted elements like illnesses or black skin.
        4y ago
- traverseda 4y ago
  Lots of "normal" plants don't produce usable seeds. Basically every apple you've ever had will produce a crab apple tree when planted, if you want to copy that tree you need to take a cutting and propogate that. I suspect that these engineered plants don't have some specific "don't produce seeds" gene added in, they're just hybrids like a liger or a mule.
  - pard68 4y ago
    Not quite how apples work and planting an apple seed won't make a "crab apple" -- that is a distinct species of tree. Getting a crab apple from a seed from a store bought apple fruit is the same as planting corn and getting rye.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    They are hybrids but unlike mules they are generally fertile whereas mules are frequently infertile. But the second generation produces a range of types with varying growth rates, ripening times, yields, etc.; so it is not really useful to propagate them.
- bluGill 4y ago
  As others pointed out, such plants don't exist. Plants that don't produce plantable seeds have a big advantage: some seed is spilled every harvest. Farmers rotate crops, if you have corn gorwing in your soybean field that is one of the worst weeds you can have. Not only does the corn take nutrients you intend for your soybeans, it is also providing a host for any corn disease in your field that you are hoping die off now that it doesn't have corn to live in.
xwdv 4y ago
There should be an open source label on produce grown from open source seeds.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be better to labeled protected produce with patent numbers? Then you force the cost and overhead on them rather than the fledgling open-source seed movement.
  - db48x 4y ago
    That would be pretty hilarious. I don’t think it would really work, but what could work is labeling the seeds with precise information about what patents they embody. Farmers could then collect the seeds and store them against the day the patents expire. Once the patents are expired (which can take up to 20 years), they can start planting them with no restrictions.
Aardwolf 4y ago
GPL-3 seeds that turn other seeds into GPL-3 as they inevitably breed around through the wind sounds like an interesting concept
- mminer237 4y ago
  It's an interesting concept, but legally it doesn't make any sense. You can't license what you don't own. If the hybrid seeds are not available in compliance with the GPL, then you would just be violating two licenses.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 4y ago
Cool and all, but there's not a single mention of "hybrid" on the entire page, which means that this is not targeted at the majority of, say, US agriculture. The general public does not understand agriculture well, and I've noticed that this misunderstanding is stronger among those that have huge huge concerns about seeds and GMOs. Hybridization is a huge benefit, one of the primary reasons to use seeds from somebody else; you get a better crop and somebody else has done the work of hybridization. It doesn't matter if your seeds are patented or not if you are using hybrids, the seeds from hybrids do not perform as well as the hybrid seeds. While it is fantastic to have the source seeds for hybrids, those that have concerns about our agribusiness would do well to learn more about the great skill it takes. Specialization and different roles is helping improve productivity immensely, which means less land is used by farming, and more land can be maintained, or returned from ag use for ecological restoration. And even outside of the seed business, specialized knowledge and skill is incredibly for boosting productivity. For example, almond farmers in California are far far more productive than pecan farmers in the South in part because of contractors who specialize in the planting and bed preparation for a new orchard. If we could transfer this skill set from California, perhaps California could stop using so much scarce water for nuts, and pecans could replace almonds for many applications. Deep knowledge, deep tech, and high specialization are good things for advanced economies. Open source seeds definitely advance that advanced knowledge, immensely. But we must also abandon pastoral aspirations of converting farming back into a hugely labor intensive activity as it was, say, 150 years ago. Except for the few that want to do it as a hobby, our backs will thank us.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  Hybridisation sounds like a bug not a feature. You get a benefit but with quite an extreme tradeoff. To be clear I understand that hybrids are current best practice. But the hybrid practice seem antithetical to open source agriculture. BTW would you say that seed producers have no motivation to develop non-hybrids that will perform as well as hybrids?
  - epistasis 4y ago
    > But the hybrid practice seem antithetical to open source agriculture. I disagree, open source ag is completely compatible with hybridization. And if open source couldn't somehow deal with the benefits of hybridization, then open source ag is not a route we should follow. Farming is a transformation of inputs into food. It's not about seeds and propagating seeds every season... that's just an attachment to a practice like being super attached to, say FTP as the only way to transfer files and deploy a website. Open Source Ag is completely compatible with maintaining two strains, crossing them, and then distributing those seeds. Having widely distributed access to these seeds, and information about them, gives the chance for more innovation in the crossing, too. The question is whether somebody can get compensated for the efforts in discovery...
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
"Open source seeds", or as we used to call them, "seeds".
- linuxftw 4y ago
  Open source seeds as in the Open Source Seed Initiate [1] come with a GPL-like pledge that you won't restrict creations from seeds based on these seeds [2] > You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives. [1]: https://osseeds.org/ https://osseeds.org/ [2]: https://osseeds.org/ossi-faqs/ https://osseeds.org/ossi-faqs/
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    I'm not against this idea--I'm just frustrated by the fact that this is now something we have to spell out explicitly and back with the threat of legal action, instead of common sense.
    - linuxftw 4y ago
      Well, you've always had to do this. If you give someone seeds, they would be free to use those seeds to develop patented varieties.
      - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
        I suspect we're actually talking about the same thing here, but misunderstanding each other. It happens.
luoc 4y ago
I remember, there was a case where a farmer grew patented plants on his field. They spread to his neighbours field who then got sued by the patent holding company for not licensing that plant. My memory is a bit fuzzy here but you get the idea. Now, how about reversing that? Think of a GPL-like licensed plant that makes all derived plants also inheriting that license. Legally poisoning the binary distribution format DNA of all inferred works. Wait a few decades and, with a little bit of evolutionary luck, wake up in a Stallman garden. I'm just a naive dude with no clue about genetics or even law. Just a thought that came to my mind :^)
- tptacek 4y ago
  No, he got sued by the patent holding company for using those seeds and then spraying them with Roundup, which would have killed off his crop had they not been the patented seeds. This is true of all the cases of people being sued for cultivating "Roundup-Ready" crops: the story they want to tell is that they were sued for cultivating seeds that accidentally wound up on their fields, but the facts established at trial were that, however the seeds ended up there, the farmers deliberately exploited the patented system.
  - luoc 4y ago
    Thanks for the insight! Saw this in a documentary and it's been a while...
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    Yeah, the courts aren't always friendly to clever "hacks" on the legal system. Intent matters, and facts can show intent.
  - cnity 4y ago
    God forbid the farmers benefit for free in some way from the unpredictable and uncontrollable pollination of a plant genetically engineered to be a highly successful cultivar. I'm not attacking you here, but the logic decided by the courts may be lawful but it is not moral (in my opinion). It's as if a noisy neighbour hosts a late night party and you happen to enjoy the music. The neighbour notices and decides to charge you for the streaming fee.
pard68 4y ago
Can the do forage turnips next? I have gotta get a few acres of turnips in the ground next month for forage for my cattle come drought season. The variety of forage/fodder plants is so sparse.
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
Article really lacks specifics. The reason so much of the USA grows “patented” seeds is because they’re created specifically to be sprayed with herbicide and not die. There’s no alternative to to patented seeds without making fundamental changes to agriculture practices. Hybrid seeds are also different than open-pollinated in that the children do not grow true to parent. Even if we removed the patents, they wouldn’t be valuable without a way to create them again (using two specific parents).
- adamc 4y ago
  Certainly there are alternatives. The Congress could make it impossible to patent seeds or other organisms. They haven't, for reasons involving philosophy, money, and perhaps the deep corruption Citizens United has spawned. They probably won't. But alternatives do exist.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Or, because patenting seeds serves a legitimate and valuable public service, smears of "deep corruption" notwithstanding.
- COGlory 4y ago
  1) There are multiple herbicides and multiple pesticides and different ways to skin a cat, not all of which are patented, or for many, the patents have expired. 2) Your second point is more applicable. Who is going to grow these seeds? People underestimate how much agriculture is devoted solely to seed crops.
  - exhilaration 4y ago
    People underestimate how much agriculture is devoted solely to seed crops Can you explain this further? I never thought about where seeds come from. Are there giant Bayer-owned fields devoted to growing seeds?
mughinn 4y ago
The solution to this would actually be to end the existence of Intellectual Property and allowing people to do what they want with the things they own. It would also solve most of the issues with copyright in memes, YouTube and the like
efitz 4y ago
Most people support patents because they have this romanticized notion of some little guy in his garage inventing the next light bulb. That’s not representative of the mass offensive and defensive patterns of use by modern corporations. We should just end patents, period.
- alphanullmeric 4y ago
  End intellectual “property” in general. Unfortunately resistance seems to be coming from artists and the like just as much as big corporations.
- kahrl 4y ago
  Something something baby bathwater.
  - efitz 4y ago
    I think that baby died a long time ago.
  - zellyn 4y ago
    Something something giant fire-breathing, acid-spewing, tentacle-flinging, city-crushing kaiju bathwater.
- dylan604 4y ago
  or end the offensive/defensive patterns used by modern corporations? someone invents a thing, someone else uses thing for evil. what to do? we ban the thing!!! yes, of course, that's the solution. don't punish the one that did the evil. <hangsheadinshameatthenotion>
  - paulmd 4y ago
    the federal reserve doesn't think there's empirical evidence that patents have positive societal benefits and they think there are very empirical and measurable harms. https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/2012-035 https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/2012-035 this isn't "generally good thing that some people abuse", this is the entire patent system is fundamentally not producing any explicable benefits and significant measurable harm, there is no reason to keep it around. the scenario about the inventor who comes up with the better lightbulb in his garage doesn't happen. if it does, somebody else copies his idea (it's gotta be fairly trivial for someone to make it in a garage) or opens up their own patent portfolios and finds an overbroad patent that describes some trivial component or practice that is widely used, and drags him into litigation that bankrupts him for the rest of his life. in software the example would be that you get dragged by someone who has patented "e-commerce on a website" or "software updates over the internet" and the money to have lawyers fight it while you empty your warchest. no "I would simply..." or "but a law firm would do that pro-bono" is necessary here, either, those are both real-world examples, someone tried to shake down Newegg in 2015 with the e-commerce patent for example. And it worked for a lot of previous victims, none of whom felt like Newegg that it was worth fighting on principle or for direct economic benefit alone. Patents literally kill companies, and they don't actually produce the intended innovations. And that's the federal reserve saying it. There were debates on ending it in the 50s, and they made the wrong decision. > If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. The harms have now clearly exceeded the benefits of keeping it. It may not have been worth the trouble of abolishing it in 1958, it is now.
college_physics 4y ago
What headline to expect next? "Open Source Air molecules Loosen Big Air's Grip on World's Breathing Population" Abusing intellectual property concepts to effectively feudalise society is not a good design. "Big Ag" has been granted a license to operate. This license could be taken away.
- hanniabu 4y ago
  Possibly, there was a time when people wouldn't have imagined needing to pay for water
  - tpxl 4y ago
    You can always walk to the nearest river and get the water for free.
    - malikNF 4y ago
      Lol no you can’t. For example https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water/water-licensing-rights https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-wate...
davexunit 4y ago
My favorite seed seller, Fedco, has an OSSI section: https://fedcoseeds.com/seeds/list-ossi https://fedcoseeds.com/seeds/list-ossi I have tried and liked Dazzling Blue Kale and Gildenstern Lettuce. I'm trying out some other OSSI lettuce varieties this year, of which there are many.
- prbs23 4y ago
  If you are interested in more OSSI varieties like those, check out Wild Garden Seed: https://www.wildgardenseed.com https://www.wildgardenseed.com The owner, the Frank Morton who was mentioned in article, is the original breeder of both Gildenstern and Dazzling Blue (and they probably grew the seed being sold by Fedco). All the varieties he bread (of which there are many) are released as OSSI varieties, plus they sell other OSSI varieties as well.
photochemsyn 4y ago
This is interesting, why can licenses like GNU GPL3.0 be enforced in US courts but not for new plant varieties? > "Legally, Open Source Seeds (OSS) in Europe works slightly differently because of EU seed protection laws. While in the US the OSSI pledge would be hard to enforce if challenged in court, Johannes Kotschi, the founder of OSS Germany, went with an open source licensing model. The license is printed on every OSS seed package in Europe. Whoever opens an OSS package agrees to never patent these seeds or future breeding of them. OSS cooperates with bakeries such as Le Brot in Cologne that offer bread baked with OSS wheat and rye, not least to raise awareness."
- wahern 4y ago
  > why can licenses like GNU GPL3.0 be enforced in US courts but not for new plant varieties? I don't know enough to be able to address your question directly, but it's worth nothing that at least in the U.S. IP protections for plant breeding and propagation are often highly specialized, both in terms of how patents operate as well as extending to non-patent regimes. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930
emadehsan 4y ago
> The farmers saved a percentage of the seeds and sowed them again the next spring. However, this is not a lucrative model for profit-oriented multinational companies, since the seed breeders only earn a profit during the first sale and not again every year. Was the "inability of the produced seeds to be sowed again and turn into a crop" intentionally baked into the seeds sold by these companies, purely for profits? Or was there a genuine biological / physical limiting factor? E.g. crop will be more susceptible to pests?
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  >Was the "inability of the produced seeds to be sowed again and turn into a crop" intentionally baked into the seeds sold by these companies, purely for profits? No, it's purely a contractual limitation. Farmers need to sign the rights away and performing experiments with seeds blown on your land is considered a breech of contact law (i.e. you don't even need to purchase the seeds to violate IP regulations). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto...
- qup 4y ago
  Legally baked-in.
- Metacelsus 4y ago
  Nearly all modern crops are hybrid strains, which means the offspring won't have the same genotype as the parents. This is the real reason why re-planting doesn't work well. It's not anything nefarious.
  - JamisonM 4y ago
    "Nearly all modern crops are hybrid strains" This is a "citation needed" situation here, the corn & Canola seed markets are certainly dominated by hybrids but very plentiful drops like wheat and rice are not to the best of my knowledge. If you have sources for this I am very interested to read up on it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
shmerl 4y ago
Patents on plants is an abysmally stupid idea that shouldn't exist.
- college_physics 4y ago
  If you can bribe a politician, the abyss is legal all the way down
- pfdietz 4y ago
  They serve a legitimate public purpose, to allow the creators of new plant varieties to earn enough to justify their creation. Why are you entitled to the results of this effort but deny the creators their due? Do you think these varieties just come into existence out of thin air, and those patenting them are somehow unfairly exploiting a windfall?
  - shmerl 4y ago
    That's a sarcastic post I assume? Because the notion of patenting life forms is simply evil. No one should be entitled to it. And those who allowed it are corrupt crooks.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      I utterly reject your assertion that patenting life forms is evil. There is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, patenting crop plants can greatly contribute to human welfare. I consider your interference with that for spurious reasons to be the evil here.
      - shmerl 4y ago
        Utterly rejecting won't whitewash it and excusing this with "contributing to welfare" is double evil in itself. Those who wanted to contribute to welfare wouldn't have tried to patent it. Like those in the above link for example. They contribute to welfare, not the scum like Monsanto and Co.
jmyeet 4y ago
I'm very close to the IP abolitionist end of the spectrum. For copyright, give works 20 years of protection. Beyond that you have to start paying hefty fees for 10 year blocks. The fee can double every 10 years. You want a Mickey Mouse ad infinitum copyright? If you're prepared to pay billions for it, go right ahead. Patents should generally not exist. Software patents should absolutely never exist. The fact that companies game patents so we still have insulin under patent 100 years after its invention by doing minor changes is not just a bad actor, it's a bad system. GM crops are particularly egregious because seeds don't stay in a field. You can infringe a patent because some animal decided to eat a plant and then relieve itself on your field. There's another angle though: not only are seed subscriptions (let's face it, that's what this is) just another way to extract the last few dollars from farmers, it's downright anticompetitive. You think the farms Big Ag are operating are paying those fees? Of course not.
- Kalium 4y ago
  On the contrary, I would bet a fair amount that ADM and similar are scrupulous about paying for hybrid seeds from Bayer and similar every year. They may get a better rate for being a very large customer, but that's true in almost every arena.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  GM crops are actually one of the areas (along with pharmaceuticals) where patents are most legitimate. Crop plants are literally things that manufacture themselves; the barrier to entry if patents didn't exist would be negligible. No one could justify the effort to create new plant varieties.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    But plant patents are new. People have been breeding new strains since the dawn of farming. Ergo, people were able to justify the effort.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      People were inventing things long before patents existed. That doesn't mean patents are worthless. Let's not engage in foolishly binary thinking, where "things are invented" and "things aren't invented" are the only two states.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
topynate 4y ago
Trying to work out what's going wrong in the cases this article describes, such that the principle "you can't patent something that exists" apparently doesn't apply. Is it that an independent breeder develops a certain strain, say red salad, and then a big company makes a modification to that strain, and patents the modification, such that the independent breeder is prevented somehow from continuing to develop red salad? That still doesn't make perfect sense to me but it makes more legal sense than "company got patent on what you already made, you can't make it anymore", which is just not how patents work.
- pacetherace 4y ago
  The cases that the article talks about (broccoli and red carrot), the researchers shared the seeds/plants with other researchers without applying for any patents or open disclosures. I don't think Seminis is really saying that they can't make it anymore, rather the issue is that for a common farmer it is not worth planting something and worrying about a lawsuit from Monsanto/Seminis to prove they provence of the seeds. With open source seeds, 1. The farmer knows that they there are no legal issues with using specfic seeds 2. The onus is on Seminis to prove that their seed is not a derivative of open-source seed, which means they have to file a lawsuit against a non-profit (hopefully well funded) instead of a lone farmer
corpMaverick 4y ago
Can I share a shower thought? Just because this thread made me thing about how wealth is accumulating so much at the top yet there is so much poverty. What if we put a limit on inheritance. Let say at most 100M go to your kids. The rest is put on a fund with your name and shares a given to kids when they are born. A way to have a legacy that doesn't just go to your kids but to every kid in the next generation. Perhaps rich people can be remembered that way and they don't have to play games trying to be in the in top of forbes, etc.
aendruk 4y ago
I recently decided to grow hops and was disappointed to learn that most of the varieties I’ve come to prefer are patented and simply unavailable. I’d love to see breweries become more conscientious about this and make a point of promoting only “open” varieties.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rblion 4y ago
It's fascinating how everything that make up civilization is being reimagined as we speak. This is really just the beginning of a new millennium and look at all that's already happened since 2000.
digitallyfree 4y ago
There are two interesting things here from a legal perspective. 1. Licensing works on the commercial seeds because they are patented, and thus the company that makes those seeds can dictate license terms on the farmers. As far as I can tell, these open seeds are not patented and thus their creators can't really impose license terms on the buyers unless they sign a contract before sale. That would be treated solely under contract law, not patent/copyright law. 2. Apparently these seeds use some sort of shrink-wrap license agreement as quoted below, which attempts to form the contract agreement mentioned in #1. "The license is printed on every OSS seed package in Europe. Whoever opens an OSS package agrees to never patent these seeds or future breeding of them." Considering the general dislike for/legal questionably behind shrink-wrap agreements, this sounds like a very poor way to enforce the OSS license. Also it is uncertain how valid this agreement is unless the seeds are patented (in that case the buyer's OSS rights can be granted via patent license terms).
- efitz 4y ago
  > …this sounds like a very poor way to enforce the OSS license I thought the same thing, reading the article. A much more effective way, IMO, would be to establish a trust or foundation with the desired openness characteristics (eg FRAND) defined in its charter, and then have participants assign IP rights to the organization in some contract. Or, as I said in my other reponse, just end the patent system.
  - digitallyfree 4y ago
    The other other option aside from having specific contracts (as stupid as it sounds) is to patent the seed itself and then license out the patented seed using open terms.
- incompatible 4y ago
  I suppose a company that wanted to use some of the genes in its own patented products would just get somebody else to open the packet for them so that they wouldn't be bound by any contract.
Papychulo0217 4y ago
[flagged]
jimmyechan 4y ago
Side note, unrelated to the main post, but I read "open source", "seeds", and "A's and immediately thought farmers are raising big VC funding rounds. I think I need to start reading other kinds of news.
ggm 4y ago
Reddit had "is this a new Linux kernel"
nullcontext 4y ago
I don't think you should be able to patent life in any form. Nature should be inviolable when it comes to man profiting from holding its reins.
fear_and_coffee 4y ago
[dead]
altosaar 4y ago
GMOs, Seed patents, gene technology ownership, wind blowing pollen bearing inventions, - Those interested in the Monsanto vs Schmeiser case in the Supreme Court, you will find all facts in the documentary book by Annabel Soutar "Seeds" https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Annabel-Soutar-ebook/dp/B00AQ3WTK0/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1GOTAB6DTQBRM&keywords=soutar&qid=1676264525&s=books&sprefix=soutar%2Cstripbooks%2C175&sr=1-6 https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Annabel-Soutar-ebook/dp/B00AQ3W...

708 points by dnetesn 4y ago

Love to see it

Do plants engineered to not produce plantable seeds have some kind of advantage, or is it purely so the seed producers can continue selling the seeds? I remember when I first heard of roundup ready crops as a child, that aspect of it completely baffled me both in why and how they would make plants not replantable.

boppo1 4y ago
>have some kind of advantage Pretty sure it's so you can't collect the newly produced seeds and sell them on the black market to people next season. Basically what you said, but it's not just about preventing people from 're-using' what they bought, but also preventing them from providing it to others.
ch4s3 4y ago
They are far less likely to spread novel genes around the environment.
CommitSyn 4y ago
I believe it's the engineering of other aspects (drought tolerance, growth factors, etc) that make them incapable of producing viable seed - not that the only engineering is to make them unable to put out fertile seed.
pkphilip 4y ago
The only advantage is that these companies can force the farmers to keep buying seeds from them. It is the susbscription based revenue model for agriculture :) https://borgenproject.org/terminator-seeds-threaten-sustainable-farming/ https://borgenproject.org/terminator-seeds-threaten-sustaina...
igvadaimon 4y ago
They get unique characteristics, like all the tomatoes look identical and have long shelf life which is important for customers because they "eat with their eyes". They also taste like shit but who cares, right?
linuxftw 4y ago
The seeds produced are often plantable. For many seeds, especially GMO seeds, the grower needs to acquire a license to the seeds and agrees not to save seeds from planted crops (as you suspect, to ensure income for the seed producer). Other seeds are patented varieties. Typically these are 'hybrids' which are a cross of two varieties of the same plant for whatever specific features they select. These seeds won't 'breed true' so the offspring will likely not be identical to the parents. From what I understand, GMO crops won't have a very stable lineage. Nature tends to select against the genetic modifications, but I do believe most GMOs are replantable today. This is not the case for GMO salmon, which they are trying to sterilize.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Why would hybrids have to be patented? You are confusing separate things here.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    Hybrids don't have to be patented, but if they're new varieties, they certainly can be. Similarly, new varieties that aren't necessarily hybrids (eg, once were hybrids and now are stable) can also be patented.
a_bonobo 4y ago
There are no plants engineered to not produce plantable seeds. There's a long-standing moratorium on terminator genes that is generally observed. The reason why you have to rebuy your seeds from the companies is because of hybrid vigor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis It's still not 100% understand how this actually happens (heaps models and results exist), but when you cross two reasonably distantly related parents, the offspring F1 will outperform both. However, if you then backcross the offspring again, you'll lose that hybrid vigor, and your F2 behaves like crap again (often the F2 is also all over the shop in the phenotype, which makes harvesting annoying with different flowering times, different sizes etc.) That's the whole business model of the seed companies: keep on remaking F1s, sell them. There's nothing nefarious or GM about this, it goes back to the 50s and 60s with Norman Borlaug making hybrid F1s in wheat triggering the green revolution.
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  I never knew about this. That's interesting. So then hybrid vigor is the reason farmers don't grow their own seeds, which contradicts the article. Obviously the OSS people would know this, so then the purpose must be more about encouraging plant diversity and allowing more companies to sell these varieties to farmers.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Hybrid vigor is also why eugenic nightmares are misconstructed. If some nefarious dictator wanted genetic supersoldiers, he'd breed them by hybridizing sickly inbred strains, and then prohibiting the supersoldiers from themselves reproducing.
    - trallnag 4y ago
      can you explain further or maybe link to something? Eugenics can also mean eradicating certain unwanted elements like illnesses or black skin.
      - 4y ago
traverseda 4y ago
Lots of "normal" plants don't produce usable seeds. Basically every apple you've ever had will produce a crab apple tree when planted, if you want to copy that tree you need to take a cutting and propogate that. I suspect that these engineered plants don't have some specific "don't produce seeds" gene added in, they're just hybrids like a liger or a mule.
- pard68 4y ago
  Not quite how apples work and planting an apple seed won't make a "crab apple" -- that is a distinct species of tree. Getting a crab apple from a seed from a store bought apple fruit is the same as planting corn and getting rye.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  They are hybrids but unlike mules they are generally fertile whereas mules are frequently infertile. But the second generation produces a range of types with varying growth rates, ripening times, yields, etc.; so it is not really useful to propagate them.
bluGill 4y ago
As others pointed out, such plants don't exist. Plants that don't produce plantable seeds have a big advantage: some seed is spilled every harvest. Farmers rotate crops, if you have corn gorwing in your soybean field that is one of the worst weeds you can have. Not only does the corn take nutrients you intend for your soybeans, it is also providing a host for any corn disease in your field that you are hoping die off now that it doesn't have corn to live in.

xwdv 4y ago

There should be an open source label on produce grown from open source seeds.

giantg2 4y ago
Wouldn't it be better to labeled protected produce with patent numbers? Then you force the cost and overhead on them rather than the fledgling open-source seed movement.
- db48x 4y ago
  That would be pretty hilarious. I don’t think it would really work, but what could work is labeling the seeds with precise information about what patents they embody. Farmers could then collect the seeds and store them against the day the patents expire. Once the patents are expired (which can take up to 20 years), they can start planting them with no restrictions.

Aardwolf 4y ago

GPL-3 seeds that turn other seeds into GPL-3 as they inevitably breed around through the wind sounds like an interesting concept

mminer237 4y ago
It's an interesting concept, but legally it doesn't make any sense. You can't license what you don't own. If the hybrid seeds are not available in compliance with the GPL, then you would just be violating two licenses.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 4y ago

Cool and all, but there's not a single mention of "hybrid" on the entire page, which means that this is not targeted at the majority of, say, US agriculture. The general public does not understand agriculture well, and I've noticed that this misunderstanding is stronger among those that have huge huge concerns about seeds and GMOs. Hybridization is a huge benefit, one of the primary reasons to use seeds from somebody else; you get a better crop and somebody else has done the work of hybridization. It doesn't matter if your seeds are patented or not if you are using hybrids, the seeds from hybrids do not perform as well as the hybrid seeds. While it is fantastic to have the source seeds for hybrids, those that have concerns about our agribusiness would do well to learn more about the great skill it takes. Specialization and different roles is helping improve productivity immensely, which means less land is used by farming, and more land can be maintained, or returned from ag use for ecological restoration. And even outside of the seed business, specialized knowledge and skill is incredibly for boosting productivity. For example, almond farmers in California are far far more productive than pecan farmers in the South in part because of contractors who specialize in the planting and bed preparation for a new orchard. If we could transfer this skill set from California, perhaps California could stop using so much scarce water for nuts, and pecans could replace almonds for many applications. Deep knowledge, deep tech, and high specialization are good things for advanced economies. Open source seeds definitely advance that advanced knowledge, immensely. But we must also abandon pastoral aspirations of converting farming back into a hugely labor intensive activity as it was, say, 150 years ago. Except for the few that want to do it as a hobby, our backs will thank us.

badcppdev 4y ago
Hybridisation sounds like a bug not a feature. You get a benefit but with quite an extreme tradeoff. To be clear I understand that hybrids are current best practice. But the hybrid practice seem antithetical to open source agriculture. BTW would you say that seed producers have no motivation to develop non-hybrids that will perform as well as hybrids?
- epistasis 4y ago
  > But the hybrid practice seem antithetical to open source agriculture. I disagree, open source ag is completely compatible with hybridization. And if open source couldn't somehow deal with the benefits of hybridization, then open source ag is not a route we should follow. Farming is a transformation of inputs into food. It's not about seeds and propagating seeds every season... that's just an attachment to a practice like being super attached to, say FTP as the only way to transfer files and deploy a website. Open Source Ag is completely compatible with maintaining two strains, crossing them, and then distributing those seeds. Having widely distributed access to these seeds, and information about them, gives the chance for more innovation in the crossing, too. The question is whether somebody can get compensated for the efforts in discovery...

ElfinTrousers 4y ago

"Open source seeds", or as we used to call them, "seeds".

linuxftw 4y ago
Open source seeds as in the Open Source Seed Initiate [1] come with a GPL-like pledge that you won't restrict creations from seeds based on these seeds [2] > You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives. [1]: https://osseeds.org/ https://osseeds.org/ [2]: https://osseeds.org/ossi-faqs/ https://osseeds.org/ossi-faqs/
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  I'm not against this idea--I'm just frustrated by the fact that this is now something we have to spell out explicitly and back with the threat of legal action, instead of common sense.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    Well, you've always had to do this. If you give someone seeds, they would be free to use those seeds to develop patented varieties.
    - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
      I suspect we're actually talking about the same thing here, but misunderstanding each other. It happens.

luoc 4y ago

I remember, there was a case where a farmer grew patented plants on his field. They spread to his neighbours field who then got sued by the patent holding company for not licensing that plant. My memory is a bit fuzzy here but you get the idea. Now, how about reversing that? Think of a GPL-like licensed plant that makes all derived plants also inheriting that license. Legally poisoning the binary distribution format DNA of all inferred works. Wait a few decades and, with a little bit of evolutionary luck, wake up in a Stallman garden. I'm just a naive dude with no clue about genetics or even law. Just a thought that came to my mind :^)

tptacek 4y ago
No, he got sued by the patent holding company for using those seeds and then spraying them with Roundup, which would have killed off his crop had they not been the patented seeds. This is true of all the cases of people being sued for cultivating "Roundup-Ready" crops: the story they want to tell is that they were sued for cultivating seeds that accidentally wound up on their fields, but the facts established at trial were that, however the seeds ended up there, the farmers deliberately exploited the patented system.
- luoc 4y ago
  Thanks for the insight! Saw this in a documentary and it's been a while...
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Yeah, the courts aren't always friendly to clever "hacks" on the legal system. Intent matters, and facts can show intent.
- cnity 4y ago
  God forbid the farmers benefit for free in some way from the unpredictable and uncontrollable pollination of a plant genetically engineered to be a highly successful cultivar. I'm not attacking you here, but the logic decided by the courts may be lawful but it is not moral (in my opinion). It's as if a noisy neighbour hosts a late night party and you happen to enjoy the music. The neighbour notices and decides to charge you for the streaming fee.

pard68 4y ago

Can the do forage turnips next? I have gotta get a few acres of turnips in the ground next month for forage for my cattle come drought season. The variety of forage/fodder plants is so sparse.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

Article really lacks specifics. The reason so much of the USA grows “patented” seeds is because they’re created specifically to be sprayed with herbicide and not die. There’s no alternative to to patented seeds without making fundamental changes to agriculture practices. Hybrid seeds are also different than open-pollinated in that the children do not grow true to parent. Even if we removed the patents, they wouldn’t be valuable without a way to create them again (using two specific parents).

adamc 4y ago
Certainly there are alternatives. The Congress could make it impossible to patent seeds or other organisms. They haven't, for reasons involving philosophy, money, and perhaps the deep corruption Citizens United has spawned. They probably won't. But alternatives do exist.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Or, because patenting seeds serves a legitimate and valuable public service, smears of "deep corruption" notwithstanding.
COGlory 4y ago
1) There are multiple herbicides and multiple pesticides and different ways to skin a cat, not all of which are patented, or for many, the patents have expired. 2) Your second point is more applicable. Who is going to grow these seeds? People underestimate how much agriculture is devoted solely to seed crops.
- exhilaration 4y ago
  People underestimate how much agriculture is devoted solely to seed crops Can you explain this further? I never thought about where seeds come from. Are there giant Bayer-owned fields devoted to growing seeds?

mughinn 4y ago

The solution to this would actually be to end the existence of Intellectual Property and allowing people to do what they want with the things they own. It would also solve most of the issues with copyright in memes, YouTube and the like

efitz 4y ago

Most people support patents because they have this romanticized notion of some little guy in his garage inventing the next light bulb. That’s not representative of the mass offensive and defensive patterns of use by modern corporations. We should just end patents, period.

alphanullmeric 4y ago
End intellectual “property” in general. Unfortunately resistance seems to be coming from artists and the like just as much as big corporations.
kahrl 4y ago
Something something baby bathwater.
- efitz 4y ago
  I think that baby died a long time ago.
- zellyn 4y ago
  Something something giant fire-breathing, acid-spewing, tentacle-flinging, city-crushing kaiju bathwater.
dylan604 4y ago
or end the offensive/defensive patterns used by modern corporations? someone invents a thing, someone else uses thing for evil. what to do? we ban the thing!!! yes, of course, that's the solution. don't punish the one that did the evil. <hangsheadinshameatthenotion>
- paulmd 4y ago
  the federal reserve doesn't think there's empirical evidence that patents have positive societal benefits and they think there are very empirical and measurable harms. https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/2012-035 https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/more/2012-035 this isn't "generally good thing that some people abuse", this is the entire patent system is fundamentally not producing any explicable benefits and significant measurable harm, there is no reason to keep it around. the scenario about the inventor who comes up with the better lightbulb in his garage doesn't happen. if it does, somebody else copies his idea (it's gotta be fairly trivial for someone to make it in a garage) or opens up their own patent portfolios and finds an overbroad patent that describes some trivial component or practice that is widely used, and drags him into litigation that bankrupts him for the rest of his life. in software the example would be that you get dragged by someone who has patented "e-commerce on a website" or "software updates over the internet" and the money to have lawyers fight it while you empty your warchest. no "I would simply..." or "but a law firm would do that pro-bono" is necessary here, either, those are both real-world examples, someone tried to shake down Newegg in 2015 with the e-commerce patent for example. And it worked for a lot of previous victims, none of whom felt like Newegg that it was worth fighting on principle or for direct economic benefit alone. Patents literally kill companies, and they don't actually produce the intended innovations. And that's the federal reserve saying it. There were debates on ending it in the 50s, and they made the wrong decision. > If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. The harms have now clearly exceeded the benefits of keeping it. It may not have been worth the trouble of abolishing it in 1958, it is now.

college_physics 4y ago

What headline to expect next? "Open Source Air molecules Loosen Big Air's Grip on World's Breathing Population" Abusing intellectual property concepts to effectively feudalise society is not a good design. "Big Ag" has been granted a license to operate. This license could be taken away.

hanniabu 4y ago
Possibly, there was a time when people wouldn't have imagined needing to pay for water
- tpxl 4y ago
  You can always walk to the nearest river and get the water for free.
  - malikNF 4y ago
    Lol no you can’t. For example https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water/water-licensing-rights https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-wate...

davexunit 4y ago

My favorite seed seller, Fedco, has an OSSI section: https://fedcoseeds.com/seeds/list-ossi https://fedcoseeds.com/seeds/list-ossi I have tried and liked Dazzling Blue Kale and Gildenstern Lettuce. I'm trying out some other OSSI lettuce varieties this year, of which there are many.

prbs23 4y ago
If you are interested in more OSSI varieties like those, check out Wild Garden Seed: https://www.wildgardenseed.com https://www.wildgardenseed.com The owner, the Frank Morton who was mentioned in article, is the original breeder of both Gildenstern and Dazzling Blue (and they probably grew the seed being sold by Fedco). All the varieties he bread (of which there are many) are released as OSSI varieties, plus they sell other OSSI varieties as well.

photochemsyn 4y ago

This is interesting, why can licenses like GNU GPL3.0 be enforced in US courts but not for new plant varieties? > "Legally, Open Source Seeds (OSS) in Europe works slightly differently because of EU seed protection laws. While in the US the OSSI pledge would be hard to enforce if challenged in court, Johannes Kotschi, the founder of OSS Germany, went with an open source licensing model. The license is printed on every OSS seed package in Europe. Whoever opens an OSS package agrees to never patent these seeds or future breeding of them. OSS cooperates with bakeries such as Le Brot in Cologne that offer bread baked with OSS wheat and rye, not least to raise awareness."

wahern 4y ago
> why can licenses like GNU GPL3.0 be enforced in US courts but not for new plant varieties? I don't know enough to be able to address your question directly, but it's worth nothing that at least in the U.S. IP protections for plant breeding and propagation are often highly specialized, both in terms of how patents operate as well as extending to non-patent regimes. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930

emadehsan 4y ago

> The farmers saved a percentage of the seeds and sowed them again the next spring. However, this is not a lucrative model for profit-oriented multinational companies, since the seed breeders only earn a profit during the first sale and not again every year. Was the "inability of the produced seeds to be sowed again and turn into a crop" intentionally baked into the seeds sold by these companies, purely for profits? Or was there a genuine biological / physical limiting factor? E.g. crop will be more susceptible to pests?

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
>Was the "inability of the produced seeds to be sowed again and turn into a crop" intentionally baked into the seeds sold by these companies, purely for profits? No, it's purely a contractual limitation. Farmers need to sign the rights away and performing experiments with seeds blown on your land is considered a breech of contact law (i.e. you don't even need to purchase the seeds to violate IP regulations). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto...
qup 4y ago
Legally baked-in.
Metacelsus 4y ago
Nearly all modern crops are hybrid strains, which means the offspring won't have the same genotype as the parents. This is the real reason why re-planting doesn't work well. It's not anything nefarious.
- JamisonM 4y ago
  "Nearly all modern crops are hybrid strains" This is a "citation needed" situation here, the corn & Canola seed markets are certainly dominated by hybrids but very plentiful drops like wheat and rice are not to the best of my knowledge. If you have sources for this I am very interested to read up on it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

shmerl 4y ago

Patents on plants is an abysmally stupid idea that shouldn't exist.

college_physics 4y ago
If you can bribe a politician, the abyss is legal all the way down
pfdietz 4y ago
They serve a legitimate public purpose, to allow the creators of new plant varieties to earn enough to justify their creation. Why are you entitled to the results of this effort but deny the creators their due? Do you think these varieties just come into existence out of thin air, and those patenting them are somehow unfairly exploiting a windfall?
- shmerl 4y ago
  That's a sarcastic post I assume? Because the notion of patenting life forms is simply evil. No one should be entitled to it. And those who allowed it are corrupt crooks.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I utterly reject your assertion that patenting life forms is evil. There is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, patenting crop plants can greatly contribute to human welfare. I consider your interference with that for spurious reasons to be the evil here.
    - shmerl 4y ago
      Utterly rejecting won't whitewash it and excusing this with "contributing to welfare" is double evil in itself. Those who wanted to contribute to welfare wouldn't have tried to patent it. Like those in the above link for example. They contribute to welfare, not the scum like Monsanto and Co.

jmyeet 4y ago

I'm very close to the IP abolitionist end of the spectrum. For copyright, give works 20 years of protection. Beyond that you have to start paying hefty fees for 10 year blocks. The fee can double every 10 years. You want a Mickey Mouse ad infinitum copyright? If you're prepared to pay billions for it, go right ahead. Patents should generally not exist. Software patents should absolutely never exist. The fact that companies game patents so we still have insulin under patent 100 years after its invention by doing minor changes is not just a bad actor, it's a bad system. GM crops are particularly egregious because seeds don't stay in a field. You can infringe a patent because some animal decided to eat a plant and then relieve itself on your field. There's another angle though: not only are seed subscriptions (let's face it, that's what this is) just another way to extract the last few dollars from farmers, it's downright anticompetitive. You think the farms Big Ag are operating are paying those fees? Of course not.

Kalium 4y ago
On the contrary, I would bet a fair amount that ADM and similar are scrupulous about paying for hybrid seeds from Bayer and similar every year. They may get a better rate for being a very large customer, but that's true in almost every arena.
pfdietz 4y ago
GM crops are actually one of the areas (along with pharmaceuticals) where patents are most legitimate. Crop plants are literally things that manufacture themselves; the barrier to entry if patents didn't exist would be negligible. No one could justify the effort to create new plant varieties.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  But plant patents are new. People have been breeding new strains since the dawn of farming. Ergo, people were able to justify the effort.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    People were inventing things long before patents existed. That doesn't mean patents are worthless. Let's not engage in foolishly binary thinking, where "things are invented" and "things aren't invented" are the only two states.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

topynate 4y ago

Trying to work out what's going wrong in the cases this article describes, such that the principle "you can't patent something that exists" apparently doesn't apply. Is it that an independent breeder develops a certain strain, say red salad, and then a big company makes a modification to that strain, and patents the modification, such that the independent breeder is prevented somehow from continuing to develop red salad? That still doesn't make perfect sense to me but it makes more legal sense than "company got patent on what you already made, you can't make it anymore", which is just not how patents work.

pacetherace 4y ago
The cases that the article talks about (broccoli and red carrot), the researchers shared the seeds/plants with other researchers without applying for any patents or open disclosures. I don't think Seminis is really saying that they can't make it anymore, rather the issue is that for a common farmer it is not worth planting something and worrying about a lawsuit from Monsanto/Seminis to prove they provence of the seeds. With open source seeds, 1. The farmer knows that they there are no legal issues with using specfic seeds 2. The onus is on Seminis to prove that their seed is not a derivative of open-source seed, which means they have to file a lawsuit against a non-profit (hopefully well funded) instead of a lone farmer

corpMaverick 4y ago

Can I share a shower thought? Just because this thread made me thing about how wealth is accumulating so much at the top yet there is so much poverty. What if we put a limit on inheritance. Let say at most 100M go to your kids. The rest is put on a fund with your name and shares a given to kids when they are born. A way to have a legacy that doesn't just go to your kids but to every kid in the next generation. Perhaps rich people can be remembered that way and they don't have to play games trying to be in the in top of forbes, etc.

aendruk 4y ago

I recently decided to grow hops and was disappointed to learn that most of the varieties I’ve come to prefer are patented and simply unavailable. I’d love to see breweries become more conscientious about this and make a point of promoting only “open” varieties.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rblion 4y ago

It's fascinating how everything that make up civilization is being reimagined as we speak. This is really just the beginning of a new millennium and look at all that's already happened since 2000.

digitallyfree 4y ago

There are two interesting things here from a legal perspective. 1. Licensing works on the commercial seeds because they are patented, and thus the company that makes those seeds can dictate license terms on the farmers. As far as I can tell, these open seeds are not patented and thus their creators can't really impose license terms on the buyers unless they sign a contract before sale. That would be treated solely under contract law, not patent/copyright law. 2. Apparently these seeds use some sort of shrink-wrap license agreement as quoted below, which attempts to form the contract agreement mentioned in #1. "The license is printed on every OSS seed package in Europe. Whoever opens an OSS package agrees to never patent these seeds or future breeding of them." Considering the general dislike for/legal questionably behind shrink-wrap agreements, this sounds like a very poor way to enforce the OSS license. Also it is uncertain how valid this agreement is unless the seeds are patented (in that case the buyer's OSS rights can be granted via patent license terms).

efitz 4y ago
> …this sounds like a very poor way to enforce the OSS license I thought the same thing, reading the article. A much more effective way, IMO, would be to establish a trust or foundation with the desired openness characteristics (eg FRAND) defined in its charter, and then have participants assign IP rights to the organization in some contract. Or, as I said in my other reponse, just end the patent system.
- digitallyfree 4y ago
  The other other option aside from having specific contracts (as stupid as it sounds) is to patent the seed itself and then license out the patented seed using open terms.
incompatible 4y ago
I suppose a company that wanted to use some of the genes in its own patented products would just get somebody else to open the packet for them so that they wouldn't be bound by any contract.

Papychulo0217 4y ago

[flagged]

jimmyechan 4y ago

Side note, unrelated to the main post, but I read "open source", "seeds", and "A's and immediately thought farmers are raising big VC funding rounds. I think I need to start reading other kinds of news.

ggm 4y ago

Reddit had "is this a new Linux kernel"

nullcontext 4y ago

I don't think you should be able to patent life in any form. Nature should be inviolable when it comes to man profiting from holding its reins.

fear_and_coffee 4y ago

[dead]

altosaar 4y ago

GMOs, Seed patents, gene technology ownership, wind blowing pollen bearing inventions, - Those interested in the Monsanto vs Schmeiser case in the Supreme Court, you will find all facts in the documentary book by Annabel Soutar "Seeds" https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Annabel-Soutar-ebook/dp/B00AQ3WTK0/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1GOTAB6DTQBRM&keywords=soutar&qid=1676264525&s=books&sprefix=soutar%2Cstripbooks%2C175&sr=1-6 https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Annabel-Soutar-ebook/dp/B00AQ3W...