News Breeding
Protest against patents on plant properties
Protesters have offered the European Patent Office (EPO) more than 175.000 signatures against patenting natural plant and animal properties. The alliance that is protesting consists of environmental organizations, farmers and development aid organizations.
The action, one day before the board meeting of EPO, protesters want to draw attention to the loopholes in European patent law. This makes them as fact possible to prevent properties found naturally in plants and to claim as his property by chance through traditional breeding.
Can you claim random mutations?
In recent years, dozens of patents have been granted in this way on plants from traditional breeding. According to the organization, these would relate to 800 varieties. This concerns, for example, natural resistance to certain diseases. The opponents argue that on the basis of the current law you can only patent genetic modification processes and not the genetic changes based entirely on chance that arise during traditional breeding. However, EPO claims to interpret the current law correctly, and that it leaves room to patent arbitrary mutations as well. The patent office emphasizes that it strictly adheres to the European Patent Convention.
Jurphaas Lugtenburg
© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.
