FrankenFoodFacts: Monsanto, Patents and Seeds

Wikipedia Commons 

Monsanto sues innocent by-standers huh?

The Pundit heard that hoary worry worry yet again last night at a friendly Skeptics gathering in suburban Melbourne.

The people were nice, and the G and T's and general chit-chat fantastic after a rather long day at the office. Pundit drank a little too much for the condition of his rather ageing tender liver, but never mind, he'll live.

But while recovering on mineral water he was interested to catch this via his Twitter stream, from @BioChica in California.

BioChica takes a fresh look at the lie that never dies:

... in 2011, Organic seed growers went before a judge in the Southern District of New York stating that they had started growing conventional produce since the threat of contamination from GMO was so high. They had to take expensive precautions such as creating a buffer zone, so that they wouldn't be sued by Monsanto. One grower testified to the fact that the only reason why he grows conventional seeds is the threat of a lawsuit from Monsanto, and if this threat didn't exist then he would go back to growing organic seeds. So, these growers requested Monsanto to “expressly waive any claim for patent infringement [Monsanto] may ever have against [appellants] and memorialize that waiver by providing a written covenant not to sue." The main issue was the fact that Monsanto's promise to never sue a farmer whose fields have been (unknowingly) contaminated by their seeds was a statement on their website. It wasn't a law. It wasn't something that they had sworn to under oath. It was just something on their webpage which, at the end of the day, could be false advertising or a PR gimmick. In back-and-forths between lawyers, Monsanto wrote that they have no reason to go after farmers for low level contamination because there's no financial incentive, and that if the motives of the growers/farmers is true (i.e. that they don't intend to use/sell transgenic seeds), then their fear of a lawsuit is unreasonable. The judge threw out the case based on the fact that "these circumstances do not amount to a substantial controversy and . . . there has been no injury traceable to defendants". All this was just in the 2011 district court case.

The case then goes to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, whose court documents are the ones I'm summarizing. The discussion states that “jurisdiction generally will not arise merely on the basis that a party learns of the existence of a patent owned by another or even perceives such a patent to pose a risk of infringement.” It goes on to state that the appellants have to demonstrate that there's a substantial risk that harm may occur or that they have to go through expenses/costs to mitigate those risks.

Now, here's what blows my mind: the Organic growers/seed distributors (OSGATA) concede that Monsanto has never threatened to sue them. OSGATA states that their fear is based on the fact that Monsanto has taken 144 growers/sellers to court and settled 700 additional cases out of court. Monsanto argues that none of these cases have been due to inadvertent contamination.

So OSGATA was not able to demonstrate that Monsanto had ever sued due to the inadvertent use of their seeds. Kuh. Ray. Zee. ...

More @ FrankenFoodFacts: Monsanto, Patents and Seeds - Part 3:

See also earlier GMO Pundit post:

•  Big lie bites the dust. Organic industry versus Monsanto on accidental crop contamination

Yup, the Pundit was wrong. The lie is not dead yet. It's got more lives than a million cats.

'