[Ip-health] PUBPAT News: PUBPAT Challenges Monsanto Patents Being Used to Bankrupt American Farmers

[Dan Ravicher]

PUBPAT CHALLENGES MONSANTO PATENTS BEING USED TO BANKRUPT AMERICAN
FARMERS: Patent Office Asked to Review and Revoke Agricultural Giant's
Widely Asserted Patents

New York, NY -- September 29, 2006 -- The Public Patent Foundation
("PUBPAT") filed formal requests with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office today to review and ultimately revoke four of Monsanto
Company's patents related to genetically modified crops that the
agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some
cases literally bankrupt - American farmers.  In its filings, PUBPAT
submitted prior art showing the patents were obvious in light of earlier
work by other inventors and, as such, should have never been granted.

Monsanto has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits asserting the
four challenged patents against American farmers, many of whom are
unable to hire adequate representation to defend themselves in court.
The crime these farmers are accused of is nothing more than saving seed
from one year's crop to replant the following year, something farmers
have done since the beginning of time.  The Center for Food Safety found
in its study of the matter that, "Monsanto has used heavy-handed
investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally changed
the way many American farmers farm.  The result has been nothing less
than an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions
that have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the
world, including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop
seed."

"Monsanto's aggressive assertion of its patents is not only obnoxious
and offensive to the core fabric of American life and culture, it is
also causing substantial public harm," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's
Executive Director.  "It appears as though Monsanto wants to control all
of America's farmland and - unfortunately - the patent system is
providing them the perfect means to accomplish that goal by bullying
independent and family owned farms right out of existence."

Copies of the Requests for Reexamination filed by PUBPAT against the
four patents Monsanto is widely asserting against America's farmers can
be found at http://www.pubpat.org/monsantovfarmers.htm.

Contact:

Daniel B. Ravicher
Executive Director
Public Patent Foundation
1375 Broadway, Suite 600
New York, NY 10018
(212) 796-0570 main
(212) 591-6038 fax
ravicher@pubpat.org
www.pubpat.org


About PUBPAT:

The Public Patent Foundation ("PUBPAT") is a not-for-profit legal
services organization working to protect the public from the harms
caused by the patent system, particularly the harms caused by undeserved
patents and unsound patent policy.  To be kept informed of PUBPAT News,
subscribe to the PUBPAT News List by sending an email with "subscribe"
in the subject line to news-request@pubpat.org.

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