Genetic Copyright Protection

The following news release indicates that it is possible for seed companies to produce a product that thwarts farmers' tradition of keeping each year's product for planting.

Perhaps the digital environment will produce techniques for authors' protection of their copyrights.

The news release raises some interesting economic questions, since no one forces farmers who are using their own seed to buy and use the new varieties. I believe some seed companies now rely on written, signed agreements -- perhaps similar to software licenses -- to commit the farmer to not reusing their seed.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
<70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com>

• Forwarded Message -----------------
  >
  > Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI)
  > News Release
  > 29 March 1999
  > http://www.rafi.org/
  >
  > ** TRAITOR TECHNOLOGY: "Damaged Goods" from the Gene Giants **
  >
  > ---------------------------------------------------------
  > New report from RAFI details over 2 dozen "Terminator II"
  > patents that link suicide seeds to proprietary chemicals,
  > genetically-weakened plants, and the patented power to
  > make genetically-inviable plants rise from the dead.
  > ---------------------------------------------------------
  >
  > Beyond the prognostications of even its most pessimistic critics,
  > Terminator science is snowballing into the corporate profit centre of
  > the next decade and beyond. And, if the major seed and agrochemical
  > multinationals have their way, Terminator and Traitor (negative trait)
  > technologies will come on the heels of the new millennium to a farm near
  > you. RAFI's Executive Director Pat Mooney declares, "With this report
  > and our previous work on the Terminator, RAFI is sounding the alarm that
  > without government action, these technologies will be commercialized
  > within a few years with potentially disastrous consequences."
  >
  > Says RAFI Programme Officer Edward Hammond, "Since we discovered the
  > original Terminator patent a year ago, even at our most pessimistic we
  > never forecast negative trait genetic engineering to explode as quickly
  > as it has." Most observers thought there would be a delay of two or
  > three years before second and third generation Terminator refinements
  > were patented; but instead says Hammond, "a survey of patent offices
  > reveals that the cat is completely out of the bag. In fact, the original
  > Terminator may be a dead letter because enhanced Terminator seeds are
  > already in the laboratory."
  >
  > RAFI reports that every Gene Giant multinational has patented, or admits
  > it is working on genetically-sterilized or chemically-dependent seeds.
  > RAFI's report provides details and analysis on over two dozen such patents
  > recently obtained by 12 institutions. The patents seek to exploit - or
  > could exploit - new genetic engineering techniques that use inducible
  > promoters to disable critical plant functions governing reproduction,
  > disease resistance, and seed viability.
  >
  > If commercialization of such seeds proceeds, farmers worldwide will be
  > tangled in an expensive web of chemicals, intellectual property, and
  > disabled germplasm that leads to bioserfdom. The technology spells
  > disaster for farmers and global food security because over three
  > quarters of the world's farmers - mainly poor farmers - depend on farm
  > saved seed. The complete removal of farmers from the age-old process
  > of plant breeding through sterilized seed could also signify a disastrous
  > narrowing of the genepool on which everyone depends for food security.
  >
  > SCARY SCOPE: According to RAFI's Research Director Hope Shand, "The
  > patents describe the use of external chemicals to turn on and off
  > genetic traits in plants and go well beyond DeltaPine's original
  > 'Terminator' patent. They are techniques to control a wide variety of
  > 'input' and 'output' (production and processing) traits by spraying
  > with proprietary herbicides or fertilizers. Others take us beyond
  > crop plants to the use of Terminator-style tactics on insects and
  > even possibly mammals."
  >
  > KILLER GENES, JUNKIE SEEDS, AND MODERN-DAY "MIRACLES": Some patents aim
  > to switch the plant's germination on or off. AstraZeneca's Verminator
  > patents use what it calls 'killer genes' for this purpose. Yet AstraZeneca
  > has been telling governments, scientists, and the press that despite their
  > continuing pursuit of its patents around the world, they won't stop
  > farmers from saving seed. RAFI's Pat Mooney says, "Something didn't add
  > up, so we set out to investigate."
  >
  > Newly discovered patent claims explain the confusing AstraZeneca
  > position. The new patents refine AstraZeneca's "Verminator" technology
  > that links plant growth and germination to repeated application of
  > proprietary chemicals. Without specific patented chemicals, the plant
  > doesn't grow. "Essentially," says RAFI's Edward Hammond, "they're
  > talking about the manufacture of junkie plants that are physically
  > dependent on a patented chemical cocktail." AstraZeneca says it will
  > patent the technology in 77 countries.
  >
  > See AstraZeneca's Verminator II patent:
  > <http://wo.dips.org/search97cgi/s97is.dll?Action=View&ViewTemplate=ep/en/viewer.hts&SearchType=4&VdkVgwKey=9735983>
  >
  > Says RAFI's Mooney, "So, you see AstraZeneca and the other Gene Giants
  > don't want farmers to buy new seed every year so much as to force them
  > to repurchase their old seed." Monsanto is already pioneering such 'pay
  > by the generation' techniques through legal means - the infamous grower
  > agreements - in the US and Canada; but research is steering toward
  > biological means of achieving the same sad end. Mooney says "It will be
  > vastly more profitable for multinationals to sell seeds programmed to
  > commit suicide at harvest so that farmers must pay the company to obtain
  > the chemicals to have them re-activated for the next planting - either
  > through a seed conditioning process or through the purchase of a
  > specialized chemicals that bring saved seed back to life,
  > Lazarus-style."
  >
  > "In effect, this shifts all the seed costs to farmers, and the companies
  > won't have to multiply, ship, and warehouse massive seed stocks,"
  > Hammond adds, "As the seed oligopoly strengthens, companies will have
  > less and less incentive to invest in plant breeding research, after all
  > they'll already have the farmers in a position of utter dependency."
  > Pat Mooney agrees,
  >
  > "With these 'Lazarus-link seeds' the advertising investment will
  > continue but the research investment will wither away."
  >
  > GENETIC MUTILATION: An especially disturbing feature of some of the new
  > patents profiled in RAFI's report is the deliberate disabling of natural
  > plant functions that help to fight disease. Swiss biotech giant
  > Novartis is most advanced in this aspect of Traitor technology. Novartis
  > blandly refers to it as "inactivation of endogenous regulation" so that
  > "genes which are natively regulated can be regulated exclusively by the
  > application to the plant of a chemical regulator."
  >
  > Among the genes which Novartis can control in this manner are patented
  > SAR (systemic acquired resistance) genes which are critical to plant's
  > ability to fight off infections from many viruses and bacteria. Thus,
  > Novartis has patented techniques to create plants with natural healthy
  > functions turned off. "The only way to turn them back on and fix these
  > 'damaged goods' " says RAFI's Edward Hammond, "is, well, you guessed it,
  > the application of a propietary chemical."
  >
  > See the Novartis antisense regulation of SAR systems patent:
  > <http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,650,505'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,650,505&RS=PN/5,650,505>
  >
  > TIGHT-LIPPED MONSANTO: Caught like a deer in the headlights during
  > recent battles over genetically-modified plants - especially in Europe -
  > Monsanto has sought to deflect questions and criticism about Terminator
  > technology by saying that the Terminator belongs to its soon-to-be
  > subsidiary Delta and Pine Land Company. As such, the oft-repeated PR
  > position goes, Monsanto doesn't yet have access to the Terminator and
  > can't inform concerned governments and people about plans for Terminator
  > seed.
  >
  > "It's been their mantra across the world." says RAFI's Mooney, "We've
  > heard the same confusing statements from Monsanto representatives in New
  > Zealand,India, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Brazil, the EU, and the US." Even last
  > week, at a Harvard University presentation, Monsanto's representative
  > similarly shrugged off the question. "In fact," says RAFI's Mooney,
  > "it's a deliberate ploy - or, at best, incomplete information - that
  > obfuscates facts about the company's own research agenda. Monsanto
  > already has its own in-house, patented Terminator technology, which it
  > says it will patent in a whopping 89 countries. Obviously, the company
  > is not being forthright. If Monsanto doesn't start coming clean, it
  > risks further damage to its already tarnished image."
  >
  > See Monsanto's Terminator II patent:
  > <http://wo.dips.org/search97cgi/s97is.dll?Action=View&ViewTemplate=ep/en/viewer.hts&SearchType=4&VdkVgwKey=9744465>
  >
  > WILL TERMINATOR WORK? RAFI notes that some plant scientists are
  > skeptical that Traitor Technology will work successfully in the field.
  > Monsanto, one of the original Traitor Tech proponents, is encouraging
  > this view. There is no doubt that Traitor Tech will be continually
  > refined as it moves toward the market; but terminator plants are already
  > in the greenhouse and profit estimates are being calculated. "It's only
  > a matter of time. Every major pesticide-producing Gene Giant is hard at
  > work perfecting the technology." Shand adds, "Companies don't patent for
  > the fun of the paperwork and paying lawyer's fees. Those who think
  > corporations will drop the Terminator - or think it won't make it to
  > market - are living in Fantasyland. There's too much money to be made.
  > Unless it is banned by governments, Terminator is going to happen, and
  > probably sooner rather than later."
  >
  > WILL FARMERS BUY IT? Delta & Pine Land and Monsanto insist that no one
  > will force farmers to buy Terminator seed. The real question is, will
  > farmers have a choice? The commercial seed industry is imploding, and
  > a handful of Gene Giants already control a rapidly expanding share of
  > major seed markets. After DuPont announced earlier this month that it
  > would buy Pioneer Hi-Bred, the world's largest seed company, the Wall
  > Street Journal concluded that the deal "effectively divides" most of
  > the US seed industry between DuPont and Monsanto. With the disappearance
  > of public sector plant breeders, farmers are becoming increasingly
  > vulnerable and have fewer choices in the marketplace.
  >
  > TERMINATING THE TERMINATOR: RAFI and its partners around the world
  > are contacting governments asking them to declare all of the
  > Terminator-style patent claims as contrary to ordre public. In January,
  > Global Response (a US based non-profit organization) encouraged its
  > 4,000 members in forty countries to write to the Director-General of FAO
  > asking him to oppose the Terminator as a matter of world food security.
  > FAO has replied that governments may take up the issue in Rome April 19
  > to 23 during the meeting of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for
  > Food and Agriculture. RAFI will be at that meeting and will make a
  > presentation to governments. Further, concerned individuals from 71
  > countries have sent almost 7,000 letters to US Agriculture Secretary
  > Glickman asking him to ban the Terminator.
  >
  > Although global opposition is mounting, RAFI worries that the UN's
  > Biodiversity Convention may go "soft" on the environmental and social
  > implications of the technology. When the Convention meets in Montreal
  > in June, it is to receive a scientific study on Terminator. "We will
  > read and respond to that study very quickly," Pat Mooney advises.
  >
  > ------
  >
  > For further information:
  >
  > Website: http://www.rafi.org/
  >
  > Pat Roy Mooney, Executive Director, RAFI
  > 110 Osborne Street South, Suite 202
  > Winnipeg, MB, R3L 1Y5 CANADA
  > Tel: +1 204 453-5259
  > Fax: +1 204 925-8134
  > E-mail: rafi[_at_]rafi.org
  >
  > Hope Shand, Research Director, RAFI
  > Tel: +1 717 337-6482
  > Fax: +1 717 337-6499
  > E-mail: hope[_at_]rafi.org
  >
  > Edward Hammond, Programme Officer, RAFI
  > Tel: +1 206 323-7378
  > Fax: +1 206 323-6052
  > E-mail: hammond[_at_]rafi.org
  >
  >
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• End of Forwarded Message -----------------