Victory; warty vegetables belong to us!

Thanks to grass roots seedsavers, and in particular the seed savers catalogue, Sieger's Seed co. patent claim on pumpkins "with more than one wart" has been proven not unique enough to claim.


ETC Group
Update
March 20, 2009


“Wartmongers” Thwarted as Bumpy Pumpkin Patent Goes Flat

Last month, ETC Group reported on a patent application(1) under
examination at the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) in which
Siegers Seed Company of Holland, Michigan, claimed invention of a
“warted pumpkin...wherein the outer shell includes at least one
wart...” On February 13, the USPTO put its 9-page verdict in the mail,
(2) rejecting all of the application's 25 claims.

“The good news is that the USPTO rejected all claims in the warty
pumpkin patent application,” says Silvia Ribeiro from ETC Group's
Mexico office. “And also that in her decision, the patent examiner
cited a catalogue from Seed Savers Exchange – a non-profit
organization that preserves and distributes heirloom seeds. Seed
catalogue entries demonstrated the pre-existence of warty pumpkins
well before Siegers Seed's so-called invention. Thousands of years
before that of course, indigenous peoples domesticated pumpkins and,
no doubt, there have been bumpy ones since then.”

“The bad news,” says ETC's Kathy Jo Wetter, “is that the USPTO's
rejection is 'non-final,' which means the applicant can make
amendments to the claims and try for a monopoly patent again.”

I smell a pig

picture

Its the trait hog. The imperialistic grab of life qualities. Slap a patent on traits...like wartiness/bumpiness or good oilyness, porkiness, or the simple fact that it has a trait that you can follow (marked) without any biotechnology. Its like putting a patent on nerdiness or freckles and charging those of us so endowed royalties for the priledge. I assume these are species wide claims.

"patent claims have been made for soy beans with a better oil quality 3 covering large parts of the plant genome when used in conventional breeding and technologies to improve conventional breeding (such as marker assisted breeding). Some of the most threatening examples in this context are patent applications from Syngenta which claim huge parts of the rice genome 4" see