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If the plant had spread itself all over his field on its own accord, you might have a point, but that isn't what happened. The farmer found seeds, identified th
by splawn 13y ago
If the plant had spread itself all over his field on its own accord, you might have a point, but that isn't what happened. The farmer found seeds, identified them as premium seeds and then cultivated them with the intent of cashing in on the value monsanto added. If you are blanket anti-gmo (not saying you are, just speaking to anyone that is), perhaps you should look into why the farmer thought these seeds were worth planting to begin with and be afraid of that instead. :)
- specialist 13y agoHow did the farmer separate the premium seeds from the rest?
- splawn 13y agoAccording to the article he already knew what they were... so he didnt need to separate them. I think he would have won the case if he didn't actually know he had planted them to begin with.
- Dylan16807 13y agoFirst off, I'm ignoring profit because that has nothing to do with whether there is patent infringement. Now, we have to look at what the farmer did. He didn't have some sneaky process of recreating Monsanto's genetic injection but pretending he wasn't aware of what the result would be. He wasn't in any way following the blueprint in the patent to replicate the described device. He was only planting seeds. Basically I'm looking at this from a couple directions. On the intent front, he definitely intended to get himself more of these seeds. But on the intellectual property front, he did not need to use the information in the patent to get more seeds. If you have a patent on a device carved from wood and someone else carves it, blatant infringement. If someone else has a tree that unguided creates the same shape, you shouldn't be able to go after them. Even if you invented the tree.
- splawn 13y agoGood points. The only thing i disagree with is "unguided". Instead of carving with a knife monsanto carves with dna. Despite that philosophical difference in view from you, Im not sure how i feel about the patent thing (Im not a fan of software patents either and this seems similar), however there is a layer of hysteria in the public when it comes to this subject that usually prevents issues such as patents from even being discussed.
- Dylan16807 13y agoedit: retried post further down
- splawn 13y agosry, Im confused on what you are trying to say now. I know its not the case, but it sounds like you are suggesting that monsanto planted the seeds in his field.
- Dylan16807 13y agoOkay sorry let me redo that post: >The only thing i disagree with is "unguided". Instead of carving with a knife monsanto carves with dna. What I meant was the original creator of the plant did the carving/guiding but the farmer is only growing it in a relatively ordinary manner. Perhaps he sprays some weed killer on it but he's not elaborately guiding the plant. (An example of such guiding would be making a topiary in a patented shape.)