Key Monsanto patent rejected!!

[nosmokes]

edited to add pubpat link

original-commercial appeal


WOOT! WOOT!WOOT!
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Key Monsanto patent rejected!

Analyst questions whether it's legal to protect plant technology

By Jane Roberts
Contact
March 4, 2007

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected a key patent in Monsanto's Roundup Ready arsenal, possibly stripping the agribusiness giant of its power to license the technology to farmers.

St. Louis-based Monsanto has the right to appeal the decision or try to reach a compromise by reducing the breadth of the patent. It has 60 days to respond.

"We believe the patent is still valid, and at the end of the process, we believe the patent will still be enforced," said Lee Quarles, company spokesman.

If the patent is revoked, he said Monsanto holds additional patents to protect its intellectual investment.

The patent is one of four Monsanto patents the nonprofit Public Patent Foundation asked the patent office to review last fall, alleging they were granted without merit.

"We think there are several problems. One is the patents don't deserve to exist because Monsanto didn't come up with something new or unobvious," said Dan Ravicher, executive director.
~SNIP~
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complete article here

For more on the patent challengesPublic Patent Foundation

[acmavm]

1. Monsanto wants to corner the market in grain. It wants to ensure that

every farmer has to buy from them. Every year. From now 'til hell freezes over.

They are pure evil.

[Cha]

2. KickNR!

mansanto needs to be stopped and this is the most positive thing I've heard about them in years!

[Canuckistanian]

3. Any setback for Monsanto is an advantage for humanity

They have a mind set that every agricultural crop is a mere commodity to be monopolized, like oil or minerals.

Not this time.

Plant utility patents should be banned.

[Morgana LaFey]

4. Thank heaven!

Let's hope it sticks.

[AzDar]

5. Kick...n/t

[Jcrowley]

6. Check out this ruling

Federal Court Finds USDA Erred in Approving Genetically Engineered Alfalfa Without Full Environmental Review
Center for Food Safety, Feb 14, 2007
Straight to the Source
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Will Rostov, Center for Food Safety,
[phone] [phone] (cell);

Joseph Mendelson, Center for Food Safety
[phone] [phone] (cell)

(Note: Individual farmers and representatives of organizations who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit are available for comment).

Precedent-setting Decision May Block Planting, Sales of Monsanto Alfalfa

Washington, DC (February 14, 2007) - In a decision handed down yesterday, a Federal Court has ruled, for the first time ever, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to abide by federal environmental laws when it approved a genetically engineered crop without conducting a full Environment Impact Statement (EIS).

In what will likely be a precedent-setting ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California decided in favor of farmers, consumers, and environmentalists who filed a suit calling the USDA's approval of genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa a threat to farmers livelihoods and a risk to the environment. Judge Breyer ordered that a full Environmental Impact Statement must be carried out on "Roundup Ready" alfalfa, the GE variety developed by Monsanto and Forage Genetics. The decision may prevent this seasons sales and planting of Monsantos GE alfalfa and future submissions of other GE crops for commercial deregulation.

Judge Breyer concluded that the lawsuit, brought last year by a coalition of groups led by the Center for Food Safety, raised valid concerns about environmental impacts that the USDA failed to address before approving the commercialization and release of Roundup Ready alfalfa.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4132.cfm

This ruling is huge. It cannot be overstated how important this ruling is and some even think it may be the death knell for Biotech crops, I'm not convinced of that but it is huge.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4132.cfm

Look for a post I'm putting together for later this evening on GMO's.

K&R

[marmar]

7. Good. Monsanto (like Halliburton) is pure evil disguised as a corporation....

:evilfrown:

[glitch]

8. Really true. No grey area even. They are pure evil., no redeeming qualities

whatsoever. Along with Blackwater and quite a few others.

[Jcrowley]

10. World War I also saw the rise of Monsanto as a major player

World War I also saw the rise of Monsanto as a major player. Founded in 1901 to bring the production of the artificial sweetener saccharine into the United States, Monsanto increased its profits a hundred-fold from $80,000 to well over $9 million per year. Monsanto supplied the chemical precursors for many high explosives. They manufactured phenol, which is a precursor of TNT (trinitrotoluene) and was also used as a battlefield antiseptic. They made the nitric acid used to nitrify the phenol-derived toluene, as well as sulfuric acid, various precursors for the production of poison gas, and additives to strengthen rubber (and later synthetic rubber) for many military applications.

<snip>

Of course, the agrochemical giants’ close involvement with the military continued throughout the remainder of the 20th century. Monsanto’s research director Charles Thomas, along with DuPont scientists, supervised the purification of plutonium and polonium for the development of the first atomic bomb and the two companies operated the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the 1950s.

Also during the 1950s, Monsanto discovered that a byproduct of its chlorinated pesticide production was causing severe skin rashes, joint pain, and nervous disorders in its production workers. This mysterious substance turned out to be dioxin and the U.S. Army Chemical Corps immediately became interested in its potential usefulness as a chemical warfare agent. The herbicide Agent Orange, which was used by U.S. military forces to obliterate the dense jungles of Vietnam during the 1960s was a mixture of the herbicides 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. Seven different chemical companies supplied Agent Orange to the U.S. military, but Monsanto’s formulation had as much as 1,000 times the concentration of dioxin.


Dioxin’s toxic and carcinogenic effects are still experienced on a daily basis by people in Vietnam, but it was a group of U.S. Vietnam War veterans who brought suit against the companies that were responsible for their own terrifying symptoms of Agent Orange exposure. When a $180 million legal settlement was reached in 1984 between the seven chemical companies and the veterans, the judge ordered Monsanto to pay 45.5 percent of the total, more than Dow Chemical, which was by far the leading supplier of Agent Orange by volume. Dow, of course, became most notorious during the Vietnam War for its production of napalm, the gasoline-based incendiary that set vast expanses of land ablaze, along with entire villages and hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. Today, Dow is also a leading player in biotech agriculture, having purchased the early biotech innovator Mycogen, as well as Cargill’s entire U.S. seed division.

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/sep02tokar.html

[GliderGuider]

9. not too distantly related -- BAN TERMINATOR SEEDS

To take action against terminator technology go to:
http://www.banterminator.org/
and click on Take Action.

The Campaign

Purpose: The Ban Terminator Campaign seeks to promote government bans on Terminator technology at the national and international levels, and supports the efforts of civil society, farmers, Indigenous peoples and social movements to campaign against it.

Origins: The Ban Terminator Campaign was initiated in response to recent efforts by governments and corporations to push for Terminator field trials and commercialization. Despite widespread opposition, in February 2005, the Canadian government attempted to overturn the CBD’s international de facto moratorium on Terminator technology The Ban Terminator Campaign was formed in response, following discussions initiated by Canadian-based civil society organizations (ETC group, Inter Pares, National Farmers Union, and USC Canada). In March 2006 at the CBD COP8 meeting, Governments upheld the global moratorium on Terminator. Some governments continue to support Terminator however and some corporations continue to develop and push the technology. Patent offices around the world continue to approve patents on Terminator technologies.

[AnOhioan]

11. K&R

The Patent Ofice struck a blow for small farmers everywhere, great news.

[orleans]

12. monsanto: the folks who brought you agent orange and continue

to bring you aspartame in the form of nutra-sweet

lovely company.

[formercia]

13. Now, everyone is going to jump on the GM bandwagon..

I don't think so. By the time Monsanto finishes paying out the lawsuits and their lawyers for all the damage their poison has caused, they will have ceased to exist.