Can't believe it says this on my grapes...

[vfem]

I believe that plant patents only last 20 years and it can take 20 years of work to develop a plant worth patenting. Especially when working with fruits that take several years to produce. Say you take plant A and cross with plant B and plant 1000's of seedlings and then after a 10 year trial only one has proven worthy of keeping. I would patent it.

Those seedless grapes found in stores can be cloned by tissue culture in a lab and the growers are trying to protect their hard work with the patent.

Here is an example of a table grape that was developed from complex breeding between four other grapes:

"Fantasy Seedless table grape-
Large, bluish-black, pale green flesh. Sweet, superb quality. Extremely vigorous vine. Midseason (early August in Fresno, Calif.). Derived from Emperor, Black Rose, Red Malaga, Muscat. 100 hours. Self-fruitful"

US plant patents:
"An application for a plant patent consists of the same parts as other applications. The term of a plant patent shall be 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121 or 365(c), from the date the earliest such application was filed."

There are species out there you still can't reproduce from that are much older. Are patents able to be re-submitted before expiration?

ETA: Yes seedcorn... I do believe when your life runs out, so does everything you have a hold on! If you leave it in your will all your profits go to you family so be it... but if you do not will, or legally bind anything to your family. Then it is going to be a free for all anyways! Your neighbors sure don't move in on it, but the courts come in and do the same thing and it costs you money to get your piece... its called PROBATE.

 

[seedcorn]

When my folks died, the courts cost me nothing, now the lawyer--another story because I didn't want to run it through the legal network myself.

While you can will possessions on, would you allow patents to be willed on for eternity like possessions? As of now, you can't. An asset is an asset.

Whole problem is we've become use to stealing people's genetics (to the point where we think it's our RIGHT) and become angry when we are held accountable.

 

[DIYSeattle]

How do you suppose that it is okay to go to a seed bank and patent seeds that are from strains older than any of us alive? I think that the roses referred to were trademarked back in the day so that you couldnt sell that variety. Now with the gmo and the genetics that are patented if someone has cross pollination from an intruding fied then they are now in violation of the intrusive patent holder.

It is good to protect your investment of time, and trademarks are good, but patenting genetics that infiltrate everyone surrounding isnt good, especially since there is no control of it. Without protecting your work though you will not profit from your hard earned goals. However going to patent heirloom seeds of 100 year old varieties isnt protecting an investment, it is greed pure and simple isnt it?

 

[hoodat]

If I have cattle, hogs or any other livestock it is up to me to fence them in. If they escape my fence and do damage I am liable for it. Why don't those laws pertain to GMO crops that escape and contaminate an organic growers field?

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

Amen, hoodat, amen!

 

[Shiloh Acres]

If I have cattle, hogs or any other livestock it is up to me to fence them in. If they escape my fence and do damage I am liable for it. Why don't those laws pertain to GMO crops that escape and contaminate an organic growers field?

THAT would make a lot more legal sense that suing the farmer who ended up with intrusive genetics he might not even want. If he is an organic farmer, then his own crop just got ruined. He should be able to sue the GMO producer who failed to contain it.

 

[sonjab314]

What is GMO?

 

[freemotion]

What is GMO?

Genetically Modified Organism. It usually means the dna of plant material has been modified so that the plant can survive being doused liberally in very toxic, carcinogenic Round-Up herbicide.

There is some evidence that GMO foods are very bad for you.

The companies who make them (such as Monsanto) have people who troll forums, defending their practices. Hmmmph. I once PM'd one, urging her not to be such a pawn for money, that there are plenty of jobs out there where she could actually do some good in the world and get paid for it. She never responded, but she disappeared from the forum. I hope she got a better job. I hope she did some research on her own and saw the dangers of GMO's and all the destruction in the world that companies such as Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, and others are responsible for.

A good place to research it is on The Mother Earth News website and on www.westonapricefoundation.org.

 

[sonjab314]

I've never heard of that. I'll have to look into it. Looks like another way for ahem "people in higher places" to junk our food up. I'm so glad I started growing my own food.

 

[kyle]

in my personal opinion, which many might not care for, nothing that can happen naturally, should patentable. Nature is there. selective breeding, however unlikely it may seem, is possible in nature. When i sell the special cacti i have been breeding for years and years to get where they are, once i sell it, it is not mine and therefor i cannot have say in what the purchaser does with it. But not a lot of big companies that deal with new "breeds" (which are probably the main ones focused on controlling the market and getting any money from other people using their plants) make new ones annually. Lychee and wax apples are prime fruit examples, there are constant new varieties out and about, and they dont always take many years. Some take a year or 2. The wonders of advanced lab work, and less advanced farm work like grafting. Old trees grafted with new stems produce fruit in 1 year, not bad for speed at all. I assume many other fruits as well, only areas with cold winters probably take a few years due to short growing seasons.

with veggies or fruit form the market, I signed no contract when i bought it. once you buy the bag of grapes, they are yours and you can let them rot, let them grow or do whatever you want.

If people have gotten so greedy over time they loose sight of how much control they may need vs how much they want over nature. go ahead and patent a process, a name, a GMO something. but as far as growing plants that were sold to you without any condition, its hard to think the courst could even side with them. but i realize they may if there is patent laws in place.

me, i breed many specific plants. Once i sell them, they are gone. People can do whatever they like with them, i am not responsible for them and cannot hold them liable for anything, nor can they hold me liable. grocery store products are sold as is.

Now they are getting smart, and putting that label you saw on the bag. So with that, they can probably have more legal grounds if you propagated them.

It angers me a bit that nature can be patented. Not processes, but all I can say is if i see seeds, i grow them. If that creates legal trouble, i choose to ignore that as well. If worse comes to worse, get a jury if possible and fight it out. I cannot se anyone spending the time/energy going to court for someone growing a patented plant....only if its a nursery or fruit producer type making profit.

IUn these cases. If i took 2 patened plants of differnet origin, breed them together and make a new one...is that then still patented? the whole gmo and tracers etc makes life so much more worse and harder for everybody from a legal/freedom point of view.


And i do understand completely the issues of motivation and means of getting money back after to pay for research etc. However i also see how this points out some fundamental flaws in our whole system of doing things...