I'll have to agree with Jon that this is hardly a big victory. The fact
that the litigation exposed corporate hypocrisy is not in itself
progress. Such hypocrisy is rampant, and is exposed every day without
necessarily effecting progress.
But I would not be so hard on organizations like No Patents on Life.
Coming up empty handed after 13 years of litigation may reflect the
enormous power of the interests such organizations are up against, more
than the organizations' priorities.
On the other hand many such organizations adopt unworkable strategies
because they are not fully aware of the power of concentrated capital in
modern society. Maybe that is the case here. As an example, the Campaign
for Sustainable Agriculture has been ramming its head (a shepherd
metaphor - sorry) against the brick wall of the USDA for years with
nothing significant to show for it. There are many such cases of
ineffectual strategies based on poor understanding of our political
economy and its dynamics, from which the relocalization movement could
draw important lessons. The assumed right to privatize virtually
everything is so essential to the preservation of the present power
structure in our society that those at the top will defend it with their
big guns.
The incentive to innovate requires a patent office and cut throat
competition only under capitalism. A test case is Cuba, where the
incentive to innovate is actually thriving without royalties, with only
the support of public policy and the satisfaction of the achievement
itself and its benefits to the common good. Of course unlike the USA,
innovations in Cuba that obviously do not benefit the common good get no
support from public policy. There, a policy of open source and an
intellectual commons permit a natural synergy and cross-fertilization of
ideas that is more efficient in the advancement of knowledge and the
public good than our intellectual property straight jacket permits.
As a shepherd (and as a citizen) I treasure the cartoon my mother sent me
of two sheep in conversation over the fence. One says, "We may look
alike, but because I'm a clone I'm actually someone elses intellectual
property."
Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
On Thu, 03 May 2007 17:31:34 -0400 Jon Bosak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Tony Del Plato wrote:
> > This is a very big victory.
> > No patents on life!!
>
> Sorry, but I'm not seeing anything in this report that would
> indicate a "big victory." The patent was revoked because "parts
> of the patent were not really new and others [sic] details were
> not described in a way that the invention could be really repeated
> by other experts." There's nothing in that to indicate a shift on
> any of the basic issues relating to "patents on life." The fact
> that Monsanto itself originally opposed the patent in question
> (until it acquired the company that owned it) shows that there was
> nothing essential at stake here. Even the group that spearheaded
> the opposition, No Patents on Life, could only say that "this is
> an important step against patents on seeds, because it shows that
> civil society will keep on fighting and can finally succeed even
> against powerful multinationals." If that's the only legal
> principle to be established from 13 years of litigation, I have to
> wonder how this organization sets its priorities.
>
> Jon
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