Seed patents: the industry’s great manoeuvres
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberDevelopments in biotechnology over the last twenty years have been spectacular, as have those in other high-tech areas such as information science and nanotechnology. In all these fields, intellectual property issues are crucial to the development of what is essentially a scientific and technical activity. The particularity of biotechnology is that it involves living organisms […]
Is 2024 the year when patents on life are politically challenged?
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberOn 20 March 2024, the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) celebrated a victoryi : the failure of the European Commission to push through its plan to deregulate GMOs/NGTs, in particular because the issue of patents blocked discussions between governments. The Commission justified – and still justifies – its proposal for deregulation on the grounds that […]
The threat of GMO/NGT patents is growing stronger
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberThe 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 […]
Modifying EU and EPO patent legislation: a wasted effort ?
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberIn 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 […]
DSI: dematerialised biopiracy
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberOriginally 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 […]
Patents on life: medicine and “disruptive technologies”
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberIn 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 […]
Towards the seizing of the processes that are the core of life on Earth
#176 - 2024 - july-septemberThe 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 […]
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Biodiversity withstanding agriculture
#172 - 2023 - july - septemberAlmost 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), […]
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Industrial agriculture kills biodiversity
#172 - 2023 - july - septemberThe 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 […]
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Intellectual property rights are detrimental to biodiversity
n°172 - juillet / septembre 2023Patents 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, […]
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GMOs : ambiguity of the animal breeding industry
#170 - 2023 - january - marchFor some European animal breeding industries, new genetic modification techniques can contribute to a sustainable food system. But, they say, their use must be done with great care, so as not to jeopardise food safety and animal health and welfare. This precaution is coupled with a call for « a legal framework on imports to ensure […]
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GMOs : when mammoths are Trojan horses
#170 - 2023 - january - marchThe 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 […]