[Ip-health] MONSANTO PATENTS ASSERTED AGAINST AMERICAN FARMERS REJECTED BY PATENT OFFICE

[ira]

http://www.pubpat.org/monsantorejections.htm

PUBPAT Initiated Review Leads PTO to Find All Claims of All Four Patents
Invalid

NEW YORK =96 July 24, 2007

The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced today that the United
States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected four key Monsanto
patents related to genetically modified crops that PUBPAT challenged
last year because the agricultural giant is using them to harass,
intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American
farmers. In its Office Actions rejecting each of the patents, the USPTO
held that evidence submitted by PUBPAT, in addition to other prior art
located by the Patent Office's Examiners, showed that Monsanto was not
entitled to any of the patents.

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.

One study of the matter
<http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/Monsantovsusfarmersreport.cfm> found
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." The lawsuits
filed by Monsanto against American farmers include Monsanto Company v.
Mitchell Scruggs, et al, 459 F.3d 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2006), Monsanto
Company v. Kem Ralph individually, et al, 382 F.3d 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2004)
and Monsanto Company v. Homan McFarling, 363 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

Although Monsanto has the opportunity to respond to the Patent Office's
rejections of the patents (U.S. Patents Nos. 5,164,316, 5,196,525,
5,322,938 and 5,352,605), third party requests for re-examination, like
the ones filed by PUBPAT against the four Monsanto patents, are
successful in having the reviewed patents either changed or completely
revoked more than two-thirds of the time.

"We are extremely pleased that the Patent Office has agreed with us that
Monsanto does not deserve these patents that it has used to unfairly
bully American farmers," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director.
"Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of the harm being caused to
the public by Monsanto's aggressive assertion of these patents, which
threatens family farms and a diverse American food supply."

More information, including copies of the Office Actions issued by the
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office rejecting the four Monsanto patents, can
be found at PUBPAT > Monsanto Anti-Farmers Patents
<http://www.pubpat.org/monsantovfarmers.htm>.
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