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

[Jeff Williams]

Dan and all,

  Very glad to see your organization challenging Monsanto here.  It's
a shame when an american company takes such a unnecessary and
foolish stance against the very folks that feed the world, including all
or most of Monsanto executives, and legal folks, not to mention
their stock holders...

Dan Ravicher wrote:

> 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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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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