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The 1998 court case between the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser and Monsanto paved the way for other legal actions in the United States and Europe. Today, farmers, plant breeders and peasants – the “small farmers” – are more than ever at the mercy of legal action by the industry and its patents. A historic dispute […]

In Europe, patents on living organisms are regulated by the European Patent Convention (EPC), which governs the European Patent Office (EPO), and the European Union (EU) Directive 98/44 on ‘biotechnological inventions’. In June 2023, the EU also adopted its own legislation on unitary patents, which applies to all fields of technology. The patentability of ‘new […]

Originally introduced as a new scientific concept, a semantic UFO has recently come to dominate all debates on seeds, biodiversity and intellectual property. Some call it DSI (Digital Sequence Information), while others call it GSD (Genetic Sequence Data). A flying object because it circulates freely in the cyberspace in the form of virtual signals picked […]

In a dossier entitled “Micro and nano technologies for healthcare” published by CEA-Leti2 , we can read: “the emergence of disruptive technologies is transforming the pharmaceutical industry“. These so-called “disruptive” technologies are mainly the result of NBIC convergence – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science(s) – in a cross-fertilization dynamic that has been underway […]

The various articles have highlighted the complexity of intellectual property on plants, its instability, its contradictions, its past and potential developments, and challenges. One thing is certain, however: since 1980, the field of patents on living organisms has expanded and deepened considerably. It now covers all living organisms, including the human species (see p.16). Subject […]

  Almost seven years have passed since the publication of our issue « Saving cultivated biodiversity » (No. 141, October 2016). Since then, the degradation of biodiversity, i.e. the entire diversity of living organisms, has accelerated, as evidenced by recent reports from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (better known by its acronym IPBES), […]

  The collapse of biodiversity (both wild and cultivated) is essentially due to human activities. Among these, industrial agriculture, with its range of fertilisers, pesticides and other harmful practices, plays a key role.   The collapse of biodiversity was once again highlighted at the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) at the Convention on Biological […]

Patents and plant breeders’ rights (PBR) are two types of intellectual property right. Both have a major impact on both cultivated and wild biodiversity. Certain intellectual property rights (IPRs) affect cultivated biodiversity, agriculture, but also wild biodiversity, which provides genetic resources [1] such as stevia or the neem tree [2]. These are patents and, for plant crops, […]

  The rampant industrialisation of our environment over the past century has led to the disappearance of many living species. This sixth mass extinction is the first one specifically attributed to human action. In the face of this observation, several political and scientific approaches have been proposed, which do not tackle the causes but try […]