Monsanto Expected to Screw Farmers with Help from JINO SCOTUS

[boutons_deux]

Monsanto Likely to Score Supreme Court Win with Far-Reaching Benefits for Corporate Farming


On Feb. 19, 2013, the Supreme Court heard yet another Monsanto case. (And yet again, Justice Clarence Thomas, former lawyer for Monsanto, did not recuse himself.) This time around, it was Monsanto vs. Vernon Hugh Bowman, an Indiana soybean and wheat farmer.


The issue in question is a familiar one for those who follow the issue of genetically engineered seeds. Each buyer of Monsanto's patented seeds must sign a “Technology Agreement” and pay a technology fee. In the case of soybeans, soybeans themselves are seeds. A farmer who plants Monsanto’s patented soybean seeds will grow a crop of soybeans, which are themselves also seeds. The Technology Agreement prohibits the farmer from saving and replanting those seeds. It also forbids the buyer from doing research on Monsanto’s patented seeds.


In some cases, Monsanto licenses its genetically engineered seeds to other seed companies, like Pioneer (owned by DuPont). When a farmer buys Pioneer seeds with Monsanto patented genes in them, he pays one price for the seeds themselves – and that money goes to Pioneer – and a second fee, the Technology Fee, to Monsanto. The technology fee pays for Monsanto’s patented genes.


Because of the Technology Agreement and the patent on Monsanto’s genes, a farmer who saves and replants these seeds can be sued. Previously, Monsanto has filed 136 patent infringement lawsuits against 400 farmers and 53 small farm businesses. Monsanto has won 70 of these lawsuits, winning damages totaling more than $23 million.


There is almost no way to obtain Monsanto’s patented genes without paying for them via a Technology Fee and signing a Technology Agreement. But Bowman found one.


Instead of going to a seed dealer to buy seeds, Bowman went to his local grain elevator and bought some soybeans. These soybeans were a mishmash of every variety every farmer in his area grew and sold to the elevator. Some were Roundup Ready, meaning that they were genetically engineered to withstand Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. Some were not. Different varieties within the mix mature at different rates and produce different yields. By any account, they were not terribly useful as seeds. But they were cheap.


The elevator was not selling its soybeans as seeds. To do so would be a violation of the law. After all, the soybeans in the elevator would make lousy seeds, given their lack of standardization and contamination with bits of dirt, rocks and debris. However, it imposes no restriction on its buyers. You buy from the elevator and nobody makes you sign a Technology Agreement. Most buyers plan to feed the soybeans they buy to livestock or use them for human consumption – not plant them.


Why would Bowman choose such a lousy – albeit cheap – source of soybean seeds? In his case, he has two different models of soybean growing on his farm. In some cases, he simply plows his field in the spring and plants soybeans like you might expect. When he does so, he buys high quality seeds and he pays full price for them. In 1999, he first bought Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans for this use – and he paid the Technology Fee and signed a Technology Agreement.


In the second case, he grows wheat. After harvesting the wheat, he plants soybeans in the same field. Farmers sometimes call these “wheat beans.” Because he plants the wheat beans rather late in the season, the crop is relatively high risk. Instead of paying top dollar for seeds that might never produce a decent crop, Bowman planted the cheap soybeans he bought from the elevator.


Then, hoping that most of the soybeans he planted were Roundup Ready, he sprayed them with Roundup herbicide. The non-Roundup Ready plants died; the Roundup Ready plants lived. Bowman raised those plants to maturity, harvested the crop – and saved some of it to replant as seeds in the future.


In 2006, Monsanto investigated Bowman and Bowman cooperated. In early 2007, Bowman told Monsanto what he had done. He says he thought it was legal. Monsanto sued him later that year.


The case first went to a district court, and then to a federal circuit court. Bowman lost both times. The court awarded Monsanto $84,456.20. Now, this case is before the U.S. Supreme Court.


Bowman’s argument – explained by his lawyer Mark P. Walters – rests on a concept called patent “exhaustion.” Patent exhaustion means that after an initial authorized sale of a patented item, the patent owner has no more patent rights to that item. Company X makes its patented widget, sells it to you, and you do what you want with it. If you decide to sell it for $2 at a garage sale, Company X has no right to your $2. It's already made its profit on the initial sale and its rights to the patented item were then exhausted.


Of course, as Chief Justice Roberts put it, “Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?”


Walters argued that allowing Monsanto to continue holding rights over its seed after the initial sale of the seeds is tantamount to “taking away the ability of people to exchange these goods freely in commerce.”


But Justice Breyer did not seem to buy that, saying, “You know, there are certain things that the law prohibits. What it prohibits here is making a copy of the patented invention. And that is what he did.”


Justice Sotomayor added, “I’m sorry. The Exhaustion Doctrine permits you to use the good that you buy. It never permits you to make another item from that item you bought.” Based on this exchange and others, veteran watchers of the court feel confident that Monsanto will win this one.


At issue here are “self-replicating” technologies like seeds or software. When U.S. patent law was first written, perhaps the authors never imagined that some day someone might create something that could reproduce itself like a seed.


Another issue arose during the oral arguments surrounding the complexity of various generations of soybean seeds. Monsanto produces patented seeds, sells them, and receives payment for them. That much is clear. But when those seeds are planted and they produce a second generation of seeds, are Monsanto’s patent rights exhausted? Or, because they are a new generation of brand-new seeds, do they create with them a new set of patent rights for Monsanto?


Also in question is the “use” of Monsanto’s invention – its patented genes. Monsanto’s patent is on the DNA it inserted into the soybeans via genetic engineering, not on the beans themselves. Walters argued that the one and only use for this invention is planting the seeds and growing them. Justice Breyer countered by asking “Don’t people or animals eat them?” but Walters replied that “That is certainly a use, but it’s not the invention… Exhaustion is about conferring on the purchaser a right to use the invention.”


In other words, yes, one can eat soybeans or feed them to animals, but that is not a use of Monsanto’s patented invention – the Roundup Ready genes. The way one uses the patented Roundup Ready trait is by planting the seeds, growing soybean plants, spraying them with Roundup herbicide, and killing only the weeds but not the plants.


Justice Scalia did not seem to appreciate this argument, as he shot back with, “He can plant and harvest and eat or sell. He just can’t plant, harvest, and then replant.”


Another question before the court has to do with voluntary vs. involuntary patent infringement. In this case, Bowman bought soybeans at the elevator, planted them, and applied Roundup herbicide to kill any non-Roundup Ready plants. He was clearly hoping to sidestep Monsanto’s patent rights to its seeds. But what if a kid bought a few seeds to plant for a science project, and without his knowledge, they happened to be genetically engineered and patented? What if genetically engineered corn pollen blows onto an adjacent field and pollinates corn that a farmer saves for seed?


Justice Sotomayor asked this question, but never received a clear answer from Monsanto’s lawyer. Monsanto’s lawyer answered for soybeans – and soybeans only. Unlike corn or alfalfa, soybeans are self-pollinating. What’s more, they are heavy and won’t blow in the wind. But other plants’ pollen and seeds can and are carried by the wind. Answering the question using assumptions that apply only to soybeans would be a mistake.


The only two justices who seemed to express concern for the precedent that siding in Monsanto’s favor might set were Kagan and Kennedy. In Kagan’s case, she worried aloud about the ubiquity of Monsanto’s genetically engineered soybean seeds, which now account for some 90 percent of soybeans planted in the United States. She said, “And, you know, these Roundup seeds are everywhere, it seems to me… So it seems as though – like pretty much everybody is an infringer at this point, aren’t they?”


Justice Kennedy added that he worried about a case in which only a small percent of seeds at a grain elevator were patented. “You can’t see those,” he said, referring to a farmer's inability to distinguish between which seeds at the elevator are patented and which are not. “That seems to me a very extreme result…. You can’t sell them if they know they are going to be used for seeds, and you can’t use them for seeds even though there is only 1 percent of the seeds?”


The case, while it might be an easy win for Monsanto, will no doubt set some interesting and important precedents once it is decided. When do Monsanto’s rights over its patented genes cease (if ever) following the sale of its seeds? What is the difference, legally, between accidentally violating Monsanto’s patent rights and doing so on purpose? And how will a redefinition of patent exhaustion from this case change patent law for everything – not just seeds?

http://www.alternet.org/food/monsant...porate-farming

And of course, the 99% will continue to get thoroughly screwed with the Monsanto GMO garbage soy.

Uncle Thomas, along with troll Scalia, continues to show no ethical sense.

[sickdsm]

Yawn. I got bored about the time the widgets were mentioned.

A better example would be that I buy The Hunger Games on DVD for $25. I then make 100 copies and burn them on DVD and sell them for $20. The argument about dirt is laughable. Plant thicker. The mixed variety concern is real but if it was a full season crop that would not be a concern. The guy was clearly losing money by not buying a specific variety of bean for his double crop beans. It is VERY much dependent on maturity date.

The article doesn't seem to say that soybeans sold in a double crop situation are HEAVILY discounted because of the risk, although I did skim the post.

The guy clearly was trying to prove a point.

[boutons_deux]

So you support Monsanto/Dupont owning 90%+ of US agriculture?

[sickdsm]

Does it matter? You spout garbage copy and pastes and never respond to any comments without another copy/paste. Do you have a mind of your own or are you a lemming from 1984?

[boutons_deux]

Does it matter? You spout garbage copy and pastes and never respond to any comments without another copy/paste. Do you have a mind of your own or are you a lemming from 1984?

yes, it matters immensely. Corporate farming is destroying land and water with x-icides and mono-culture, while delivering ty food.

[SA210]

I find it funny how people want to play moderator and act like copying and pasting an article is somehow against forum rules. I guess when the article, youtube, etc goes against their beliefs/opinion or tramples on their feelings, it's a problem. Maybe we should stick to non issues like Rubio drinking water or Obama being with Tiger Woods. That would make us all feel better. Facts are facts, facts don't go away just because you attack someone personally for posting them.

F Monsanto, and f the Prez for appointing Monsanto

[boutons_deux]

Does it matter? You spout garbage copy and pastes and never respond to any comments without another copy/paste. Do you have a mind of your own or are you a lemming from 1984?

and I REALLY APPRECIATE your original thoughts and insights, so devastating. you're one amazing mother er.

[z0sa]

Boutons is your classic outer party member. He subscribes fully to blue tean rhetoric and is nothing but a shill.

[boutons_deux]

Boutons is your classic outer party member. He subscribes fully to blue tean rhetoric and is nothing but a shill.

For whom am I shilling?

and your posts are fantastically as valuable sickodsm's

[Bobby Boucher]

Hey b-b-boutons, you ever seen a lady all naked before? This one time when I went to see J-Jenny while she was away at college, she showed me her b-b-boobies. They was real nice, like that Obama man you so fond of.

[sickdsm]

I find it funny how people want to play moderator and act like copying and pasting an article is somehow against forum rules. I guess when the article, youtube, etc goes against their beliefs/opinion or tramples on their feelings, it's a problem. Maybe we should stick to non issues like Rubio drinking water or Obama being with Tiger Woods. That would make us all feel better. Facts are facts, facts don't go away just because you attack someone personally for posting them.

F Monsanto, and f the Prez for appointing Monsanto

There not facts. I call BS on a few things and he can only copy/paste. He's an idiot. He never responds to comments directly.

[sickdsm]

and I REALLY APPRECIATE your original thoughts and insights, so devastating. you're one amazing mother er.

I gave you a perspective on this subject that you obviously didn't find in your google search for info. So I would call my thoughts on this subject at least more original than yours.

Nice rebuttal BTW. Perhaps you could drive your points home with a few mom jokes?

[sickdsm]

yes, it matters immensely. Corporate farming is destroying land and water with x-icides and mono-culture, while delivering ty food.

Another gem from boutons. Corporate farming is HORRIBLE. I have a corporate farm. Just me and the wife. Smaller farm but we are incorporated. How are we so horrible BTW? Lots and lots of people incorporate business's both big (obviously) and very small. You seem to be just repeating drivel that you've saw printed elsewhere.

What does "corporate" have to do with being sustainable or not?

[mouse]

I suggest anyone who supports Monsanto or doesn't know how ed up the seed patents are you should Google Monsanto.

The videos are all negative.

[SA210]

[boutons_deux]

The primary reason for GMO/Monsanto garbage is to increase corporate profits with patented seeds that produce increase food and yields while being resistant to Roundup, NOT Human-Americans' or environmental health.

Now that pests, fungus, weeds have become resistant to the pro-Roundup generation of Monsanto , Monsanto has come out with a "stack" of GM seeds that allows OTHER Monsanto chemicals to be dumped by the ton on crops, much of which DOES NOT degrade to harmlessness AND runs off into streams, rivers.

btw, Monsanto's LIES by its d scientists say that Roundup is harmless. Non-Monsanto scietists vehemently disagree.

sickodsm, I know you aren't just playing dumb, and you are probably too minuscule of an operation to worry about, but you probably dump tons of on your crops like most farmers. YOU are the problem.

[boutons_deux]

Fantastic article on DENATURED industrial, chemical-saturated farm land.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/20...e?sc=17&f=1007

Just one of the reasons "food-like substances" from American agriculture has only a tiny fraction of the healthy nutrients that produce of 50 or 100 years ago had.

It's industrial garbage masquerading as food.

A diseased planet produces diseased, dying inhabitants. And SICK inhabitants (profits trump EVERYTHING) sicken the planet.

[boutons_deux]

Then BigFood take the output of BigAg (corn, soy, wheat), s it up even more, adds synthetic chemicals, salt, grease, sweetener.

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/02/24...-food.xml?f=19

[boutons_deux]

the pure evil of "free market" cartelization of seed patrimony

SEED INDUSTRY CONCENTRATION

The advent of utility patent protection for plants is one of several factories that triggered a massive wave of mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s that continues to the present dayM Large agricherztical firms such as Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow; and Bayer have acquired scores of seed companies, including many of the largest firms with the highest-quality germplasm.

As of 2009, these five companies accounted for 58 percent of the world's commercial seed sales With this concentration has come increasing market power to raise seed prices and reduce availability of more avoidable seed. Consolidation has also made it harder for smaller farms to stlz-szive and even more difficult for new seed firms to get a start because so much of the world's most desirable germplasm is patented by the seed giants. As corporations continue to ac ulate patents for a vast amount of germplasm, their control over seeds writ large is expanding.

INCREASED SEED prices

Seed prices have risen dramatically in those crops
in which patented GE varieties are now predominant,
such as corn, soybeans, and cotton. USDA
data show that since the introduction of GE seed,
the average cost of soybean seed to plant one acre
has risen by a dramatic 325 percent, from $13.32
to $56.58. Similar trends exist for corn and cotton
seeds: cotton seeds ed 516 percent from 1995- 2011
and corn seed costs rose 259 percent over the
same period.

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/w...ants_final.pdf

[mouse]

[mouse]

[Wild Cobra]

Another long video with no time index of relevant points.

No thanx.

[sickdsm]

The primary reason for GMO/Monsanto garbage is to increase corporate profits with patented seeds that produce increase food and yields while being resistant to Roundup, NOT Human-Americans' or environmental health.

Now that pests, fungus, weeds have become resistant to the pro-Roundup generation of Monsanto , Monsanto has come out with a "stack" of GM seeds that allows OTHER Monsanto chemicals to be dumped by the ton on crops, much of which DOES NOT degrade to harmlessness AND runs off into streams, rivers.

btw, Monsanto's LIES by its d scientists say that Roundup is harmless. Non-Monsanto scietists vehemently disagree.

sickodsm, I know you aren't just playing dumb, and you are probably too minuscule of an operation to worry about, but you probably dump tons of on your crops like most farmers. YOU are the problem.

Of course I'm the problem. I'm incorporated, therefore I'm evil. I'm wondering if you plan on addressing that comment. I would like to point out that I don't like Monsanto, but because of their business practices. When talking about roundup, Re you comparing it to the previous method of extreme amounts of DDT and Atrazine? Both many times worse for the environment. Or are you thinking of a Mexican powered horde of weed pickers that migrate from field to field? Perhaps they sing Kumbaya and hold hands around the campfire in your Utopia?

There are many more issues not being addressed that are eons worse than GMO's. take a gander at the damage that fert and herbicide runoffs from lawns do. What about the overcrowding of the southwest area and the water issues?

[sickdsm]

Rising seed prices have been countered with a herbicide program thats pennies on the dollar to implement. It's cheaper to do this. But thanks for responding about a environment sustainability issue with an economic post.

I'd suggest finding a new search engine for your copy/pastes. Perhaps sorting by relevancy or adding a few more words to the search would help.

[Clipper Nation]

Boutons getting completely owned and exposed per par