"herbicide attacks particular plant functions which are expressed by specific genes. So there is no 'wiggle' room around other people wanting to create the same capability without infringing the patent."
I don't think that's true, immediately I'm thinking of enzymes that could cleave the herbicide, or making plants resistant to a different herbicide.
Monsanto is primarily a maker of herbicides not GM crops, GM crops are a compliment to it's business and Monsanto designs plants to work well with their products. If you want to use a different herbicide and a different gene sequence you're completely welcome to, what your not allowed to do is use a specific genes that confer resistance to monsanto's own products.
I think the parallel development of eyes in many species proves that nature is rather flexible in how solutions can be implemented.
It's completely possible to make herbicide resistant plants with out infringing on Monsanto's IP. It just might be a little more difficult to make one for RoundUp.
Also, the Roundup Ready soybeans patent is due to expire in 2014, so in 2 years farmers all around the world get Roundup Ready soybeans for free, just as the patent system intended. By the time this gets infront of a judge the farmers could go plant all the patented crop they want.
Monsanto makes a tidy profit on the development, farmers eventually get the seed for free, Monsanto sells lots of roundup, which pollute the environment less than other herbicides, win, win, win.
> Also, the Roundup Ready soybeans patent is due to expire in 2014, so in 2 years farmers all around the world get Roundup Ready soybeans for free, just as the patent system intended.
Unless Monsanto suddenly stops selling Roundup and instead sells a different, "new and improved" herbicide with a new set of recently-patented resistent seeds. And lobbies for governments to ban Roundup because of a recently study saying it's a threat to the environment after all.
At least that's how it tends to work in the pharmaceutics industry.
Came here to make a similar point: not only could you make a plant that produces enzymes that cleave the herbicide, you could make a plant that expresses efflux pumps that pump the herbicide out of the cells, making the plant immune as well. This mechanism is used by cancer tumors and bacteria to resist all the crap we throw at them trying to kill them. I suspect there are a multitude of ways to make Round-up resistant crops.
An excellent point. That would certainly be a point in Monsanto's favor. I am not sure I could say the same about the BRCA1 gene for breast cancer diagnosis though. That too is patented. Which reinforces for me how complex this issue is. We often discuss software patents (and as "practitioner of the art" :-) I can relate.) but I am not a biologist, much less a geneticist.
Yeah there are definitely points on each side. I wonder too how difficult this stuff is to skilled people, I wonder if there is a biohacker news where people laugh about the triviality of making something resistant to round up, like the triviality of 1 click purchasing.
I wish there was a biohacker news. While the idea is pretty trivial. Showing that it worked, getting it into plants and getting it to work well, and then getting the products through the pretty significant regulatory hurdles is not trivial.
I don't think that's true, immediately I'm thinking of enzymes that could cleave the herbicide, or making plants resistant to a different herbicide.
Monsanto is primarily a maker of herbicides not GM crops, GM crops are a compliment to it's business and Monsanto designs plants to work well with their products. If you want to use a different herbicide and a different gene sequence you're completely welcome to, what your not allowed to do is use a specific genes that confer resistance to monsanto's own products.
I think the parallel development of eyes in many species proves that nature is rather flexible in how solutions can be implemented.
It's completely possible to make herbicide resistant plants with out infringing on Monsanto's IP. It just might be a little more difficult to make one for RoundUp.
Also, the Roundup Ready soybeans patent is due to expire in 2014, so in 2 years farmers all around the world get Roundup Ready soybeans for free, just as the patent system intended. By the time this gets infront of a judge the farmers could go plant all the patented crop they want.
Monsanto makes a tidy profit on the development, farmers eventually get the seed for free, Monsanto sells lots of roundup, which pollute the environment less than other herbicides, win, win, win.