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>locked in a legal battle with a company that claims exclusive rights over the variety of white nectarine he grows. >[...] Fruit patents are becoming more comm

>locked in a legal battle with a company that claims exclusive rights over the variety of white nectarine he grows. >[...] Fruit patents are becoming more common this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food.

jMyles 4mo ago
...and none does. You can grow and sell any peach you want; the tree has no sense of the childish tantrums of the state over its bounty. This is a strong and obvious indications that the laws and statues as presented by the state are not in fact the actual underlying modes under which society operates.
- bluerooibos 4mo ago
  > ..and none does. Monsanto begs to differ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.
  - jMyles 4mo ago
    Of course, but my point is: Monsanto is obviously incorrect. It's plain to see. Plants grow without permission. Bytes flow without permission. Ideas propagate without permission. All this silliness to create a huge complicated regime to pretend that these things are "property" in the same sense as your underwear is just so obviously childish, incoherent, and inconsistent with reality. It's just a really elaborate gown purported to be worn by the manifestly naked emperor.
    - gruez 4mo ago
      >Of course, but my point is: Monsanto is obviously incorrect. It's plain to see. Plants grow without permission. Bytes flow without permission. Ideas propagate without permission. So you're against any sort of intellectual property?
      - PunchyHamster 4mo ago
        Current IP rights are overly stringent and ones designed to protect IP actively detract from progress.
      - jMyles 4mo ago
        > So you're against any sort of intellectual property? I observe that the universe in which I live doesn't seem to include the concept of intellectual property, and that there is quite a lot of misery and confusion that arises from efforts to shoehorn it in.
bluerooibos 4mo ago
> this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food. Wait until you hear about Monsanto/Bayer - a quick Google of "monsanto food patents" brings up the highlights.
- gruez 4mo ago
  >a quick Google of "monsanto food patents" brings up the highlights. The cases seem fairly reasonable, given how the defendents were basically engaging in selective breeding to copy the traits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Patent_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Patent_li...
  - Suppafly 4mo ago
    >The cases seem fairly reasonable, given how the defendents were basically engaging in selective breeding to copy the traits. This, the people that don't understand farming and buy into weird anti-gmo propaganda always claim that a simple google search agrees with them, but when you actually read the cases, it's clear that the people being sued are always in the wrong.
bpodgursky 4mo ago
This is so simplistic. They made a new varietal. Nobody is saying he can't plant any of the standard heirloom Nectarines. The patent will expire in a while, and then anyone can do it. Honestly, how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? This is how it has worked for half a century and mild gripes aside, the quality of the produce in stores is WAY WAY BETTER than it was before (seriously, what is the last time you ate a Red Delicious apple?) Have like... some awareness of the large functioning important system you are mindlessly breaking with throwaway comments.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- armchairhacker 4mo ago
  > how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? How do academics make scientific discoveries if the results are public? Government, industry, and private patronage. People want better crops, they’ll fund and make contests for them
  - cyberax 4mo ago
    Well, yes. That's what is happening. The contest is called "market" and "the people" reward competitors by paying them. Patents are used to enforce the rules so that competitors don't cheat. Selective breeding requires sometimes _decades_ of commitment and a lot of very boring work. This is not a good fit for academia and even worse fit for government programs.
    - skeledrew 4mo ago
      > _decades_ of commitment and a lot of very boring work Sounds like it's ripe for AI automation. Need less of this nonsense about restricting access because "effort should be rewarded with exclusivity".
      - 4mo ago
werdnapk 4mo ago
If you spent decades doing selective breeding to obtain a more desirable product, you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product from you and made money off of your hard work. If the products are being bred from tax funded programs, then yes, anybody should have access to the new breeds, but if it's privately funded, then why should it be available for everyone? Without the protection, there isn't much incentive to invest time into developing better foods.
- PunchyHamster 4mo ago
  But you can't just take a seed and make a new plant of same characteristics. Now I'm not sure if that's the case for nectarines but apples mutate massively between seed and plant that made it so basically all plantations are clones or clones + grafts. You'd have better luck "stealing" it with some wire cutters and cutting some shoots off the trees
- basilikum 4mo ago
  > you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product For sure, no one is arguing for stealing fruits here. However while you can steal physical fruits, you cannot steal genes. > then why should it be available for everyone? Why should it not be? You seem to view the right to breed a variety of some species that you created as some natural right and default. It is not. What you are arguing for here is the state going after people for creating the environment for plants to reproduce, which is a natural right.
  - gruez 4mo ago
    >you cannot steal genes. Why not? You can steal bits, unless you think copyright law's bunk as well. You can even steal ideas (patents).
    - basilikum 4mo ago
      You can steal neither of those. You can copy them and in some specific cases copying bits or letters or some other human creative work might be unethical, in a lot more cases it can be illegal, but it is not theft.
odie5533 4mo ago
Plant patents incentivize the creation of disease resistant, tasty, and hardy varieties. If you remove the patents, you remove the incentive for private capital. Capital to create new plants has to come from somewhere: public tax funding, grower-funded pools, or patent licensing. We do a mix of all three.
- moi2388 4mo ago
  Farmers already have plenty of incentive for hardy and resistant varieties. People already have plenty of incentive for tasty varieties. You don’t need patents. The single biggest technology driver has been maths. And it doesn’t have patents. Patents stifle innovation.
HDThoreaun 4mo ago
This isnt even a patent case. Its a contracts case. The article says these trees arent under patent, the farmer signed a contract saying he would only sell to one supplier and now wants to sell to others.

jMyles 4mo ago

...and none does. You can grow and sell any peach you want; the tree has no sense of the childish tantrums of the state over its bounty. This is a strong and obvious indications that the laws and statues as presented by the state are not in fact the actual underlying modes under which society operates.

bluerooibos 4mo ago
> ..and none does. Monsanto begs to differ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.
- jMyles 4mo ago
  Of course, but my point is: Monsanto is obviously incorrect. It's plain to see. Plants grow without permission. Bytes flow without permission. Ideas propagate without permission. All this silliness to create a huge complicated regime to pretend that these things are "property" in the same sense as your underwear is just so obviously childish, incoherent, and inconsistent with reality. It's just a really elaborate gown purported to be worn by the manifestly naked emperor.
  - gruez 4mo ago
    >Of course, but my point is: Monsanto is obviously incorrect. It's plain to see. Plants grow without permission. Bytes flow without permission. Ideas propagate without permission. So you're against any sort of intellectual property?
    - PunchyHamster 4mo ago
      Current IP rights are overly stringent and ones designed to protect IP actively detract from progress.
    - jMyles 4mo ago
      > So you're against any sort of intellectual property? I observe that the universe in which I live doesn't seem to include the concept of intellectual property, and that there is quite a lot of misery and confusion that arises from efforts to shoehorn it in.

bluerooibos 4mo ago

> this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food. Wait until you hear about Monsanto/Bayer - a quick Google of "monsanto food patents" brings up the highlights.

gruez 4mo ago
>a quick Google of "monsanto food patents" brings up the highlights. The cases seem fairly reasonable, given how the defendents were basically engaging in selective breeding to copy the traits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Patent_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#Patent_li...
- Suppafly 4mo ago
  >The cases seem fairly reasonable, given how the defendents were basically engaging in selective breeding to copy the traits. This, the people that don't understand farming and buy into weird anti-gmo propaganda always claim that a simple google search agrees with them, but when you actually read the cases, it's clear that the people being sued are always in the wrong.

bpodgursky 4mo ago

This is so simplistic. They made a new varietal. Nobody is saying he can't plant any of the standard heirloom Nectarines. The patent will expire in a while, and then anyone can do it. Honestly, how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? This is how it has worked for half a century and mild gripes aside, the quality of the produce in stores is WAY WAY BETTER than it was before (seriously, what is the last time you ate a Red Delicious apple?) Have like... some awareness of the large functioning important system you are mindlessly breaking with throwaway comments.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
armchairhacker 4mo ago
> how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? How do academics make scientific discoveries if the results are public? Government, industry, and private patronage. People want better crops, they’ll fund and make contests for them
- cyberax 4mo ago
  Well, yes. That's what is happening. The contest is called "market" and "the people" reward competitors by paying them. Patents are used to enforce the rules so that competitors don't cheat. Selective breeding requires sometimes _decades_ of commitment and a lot of very boring work. This is not a good fit for academia and even worse fit for government programs.
  - skeledrew 4mo ago
    > _decades_ of commitment and a lot of very boring work Sounds like it's ripe for AI automation. Need less of this nonsense about restricting access because "effort should be rewarded with exclusivity".
    - 4mo ago

werdnapk 4mo ago

If you spent decades doing selective breeding to obtain a more desirable product, you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product from you and made money off of your hard work. If the products are being bred from tax funded programs, then yes, anybody should have access to the new breeds, but if it's privately funded, then why should it be available for everyone? Without the protection, there isn't much incentive to invest time into developing better foods.

PunchyHamster 4mo ago
But you can't just take a seed and make a new plant of same characteristics. Now I'm not sure if that's the case for nectarines but apples mutate massively between seed and plant that made it so basically all plantations are clones or clones + grafts. You'd have better luck "stealing" it with some wire cutters and cutting some shoots off the trees
basilikum 4mo ago
> you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product For sure, no one is arguing for stealing fruits here. However while you can steal physical fruits, you cannot steal genes. > then why should it be available for everyone? Why should it not be? You seem to view the right to breed a variety of some species that you created as some natural right and default. It is not. What you are arguing for here is the state going after people for creating the environment for plants to reproduce, which is a natural right.
- gruez 4mo ago
  >you cannot steal genes. Why not? You can steal bits, unless you think copyright law's bunk as well. You can even steal ideas (patents).
  - basilikum 4mo ago
    You can steal neither of those. You can copy them and in some specific cases copying bits or letters or some other human creative work might be unethical, in a lot more cases it can be illegal, but it is not theft.

odie5533 4mo ago

Plant patents incentivize the creation of disease resistant, tasty, and hardy varieties. If you remove the patents, you remove the incentive for private capital. Capital to create new plants has to come from somewhere: public tax funding, grower-funded pools, or patent licensing. We do a mix of all three.

moi2388 4mo ago
Farmers already have plenty of incentive for hardy and resistant varieties. People already have plenty of incentive for tasty varieties. You don’t need patents. The single biggest technology driver has been maths. And it doesn’t have patents. Patents stifle innovation.

HDThoreaun 4mo ago

This isnt even a patent case. Its a contracts case. The article says these trees arent under patent, the farmer signed a contract saying he would only sell to one supplier and now wants to sell to others.