A patent on nature

The big problem with transgenic plants is Monsanto seed patents and its quest for farmer royalties; their actions are backed by the American judiciary system and the WTO with its global free trade rules. If Monsanto’s sinister practices in the US are narrated and bannered through strong images by the documentary Food, Inc. (an “inconvenient truth” for food), then maybe the rest of the world still has a fighting chance against daily meal degradation.

The object of seed patents is set according to country. Generally speaking, were talking about “something” that is alive and defines a certain plant. This something can either be found in a complex natural environment from where it has to be extracted, or, on the other hand, it can’t be found in nature so some genes get spliced in order to form something that doesn’t occur naturally in that plant.

Monsanto’s genetically modified seed patents entailed a 400.000 page patent document of chemical formulas; largely speaking. Of course all that happened in America. Reduction ad absurdum: Could Romania ever deny such a patent?

Stefan Gavrilescu, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property, answers on behalf of “Green Report”. “I think it’s a slightly irrelevant problem. Those holding the patents are very big companies, the biggest being Monsanto. They aren’t obliging Romania to recognize their patents; they’re registering them here because Romania has a Patent Law. They can register patents here, and in accordance to Romanian law.”

“The philosophy behind seed patents is simple at its essence. But sincerely, I’m still not certain anyone is 100% right. Surprisingly it’s a lot easier to find anti-genetic-modification material than information materials on juridical doctrine,” Gavrilescu explains.

It’s very expensive to invent a plant that has only certain characteristics: for instance, a plant that repels specific insects, pests, or other plants. A genetically altered plant can be engineered to have within itself, at a cellular level, substances which are toxic for some or all pests. Placing pesticide-resilient bacteria in a plant through genetic alteration is said to be a very costly research process. “On the other hand, once you’ve learnt the process it’s very easy to use the invention’s result without paying. Say that I, Monsanto, make a bug repelling plant and put 100 bags on the market. Well, if I have no protection, in the next year my 100 customers will be selling their own seed at a profit to their own customers. And I have invested my money for nothing,” Gavrilescu says.

This is the stale rationalization behind the intellectual property protection of transgenic seeds.

Patent contamination

Even though it may sound bizarre, contamination with genetically modified organisms could create problems from the perspective of patents. A relatively recent normative act allows for any commercialized seed to have up to 0,5% modified material.

A farmer can buy seed that has less than 0,5% patented genes. However, unexpected and strange situations are possible, activist Craioveanu thinks. “Once planted, contamination with modified genes can increase exponentially. So the farmer may unwillingly do something illegal and ultimately be made to pay royalties when the legal percentage is exceeded. Evidently, the farmer is innocent, the guilt is presumed by law. It’s contamination through patents,” Craioveanu concludes.

Seed patenting is illegitimate

Now the discussions start. In the US during the interwar period, new types of plants were invented by state owned institutions.  The privatization of this activity began later, and implicitly, so did the need for legal protection. Evidently, the seeds are natural but Monsanto’s don’t “naturally” occur in nature.

Interestingly enough, conflict already exists between big manufacturers and small farmers who have found natural varieties of resistant plants, Gavrilescu shows.

There are plants resilient to climatic changes like a type of Indian rice which is resistant to floods. Large companies are trying to extract the genetic information form that type of rice and patent it, even though it has been used naturally for maybe thousands of years.