Europe Continues To Allow Vegetable Patent Despite Being Told To Stop

from the patently-crazy dept

Tue, May 28th 2013 10:53am — Mike Masnick

Two years ago, we wrote about how the European Patent Organization had granted a patent on broccoli. The patent was originally on the breeding method, but then it was ruled that the breeding methods were not covered by the patents, leaving just the basic broccoli as patented. Both the European Parliament and the German Parliament have said that the EPO should stop granting vegetable patents, but apparently it hasn't stopped. It's now issued a patent on a kind of pepper. While the new peppers are supposedly "resistant to insects," people are pointing out that it was derived from conventional breeding -- and that's what was rejected in the broccoli case. What's amazing, by the way, is that this pepper patent appears to have gone to Syngenta, which I believe was one of the companies that fought against the broccoli patent.

As for the European Patent Organization, it says that it's still waiting to hear about the final decision on the broccoli patent (and a tomato one) from the Enlarged Board of Appeal (I don't want to know...), and that while it finds the European Parliament's request to stop issuing such patents interesting, the European Parliament has no mandate over the European Patent Organization, so they don't really care that much. In the meantime, careful what you eat in your salad.

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Filed Under: broccoli, epo, europe, european patent organization, patents, peppers, vegetables
Companies: syngenta

15 Comments

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silverscarcat (profile), 28 May 2013 @ 10:16am

They can patent broccoli
No one eats that stuff anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:06am

"As for the European Patent Organization, it says that it's still waiting to hear about the final decision on the broccoli patent (and a tomato one) from the Enlarged Board of Appeal..."

I don't see how the Tomato patent would be relevant for the discussion, given that Tomato is a fruit.

I think that it is clear what is happening: The Enlarged Board was brainwashed by some anti-ip terrorist group - most likely the EFF - into believing that patents are evil.

But they wont succeed. We won't rest until these terrorists stop making illegal copies of vegetables and destroying the means of putting food on the table for vegetable researchers worldwide.

For the sake of humanity, we will make sure that nobody will be able to grow food in their back yards ever again.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:21am

Next step with that patent, sue everyone who's ever eaten a salad for violating the patent. And then sue the governments for helping poor people violate the patents with food stamp programs.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:35am

Re:
Virtually the patent is pretty stupid now. The tomato hearing is on 8. of november 2013. Hopefully that case goes through. On the other hand: Anything touching EPO is extremely corrupted by "legal above all" arguments. It is an illness with law-professionals where they get lost in the details of how to interpred the law to understand that they are in direct contradiction of the law and/or the spirit of the law. The EP has tried to get EPO back on track in several ways, but logic is not a sufficient strategy. I think Average_Joe from this site has caught the same illness.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:49am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 28th, 2013 @ 11:21am
You fail to understand the Food Stamp program: those poor sods really do get old postage stamps for brekky and lunch.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:51am

this bunch are only following in the footsteps of the US allowing Monsanto to dictate what farmers can and cant grow, where they can get the seeds, what they can do with the seeds and god knows what else. i dont think the USA is going to be content until there isn't a single solitary thing that isn't patented, including the patent on patenting! fucking ridiculous, but about par for the mentality of those concerned
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Ninja (profile), 28 May 2013 @ 12:03pm

Re: They can patent broccoli
I do =(((
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Ninja (profile), 28 May 2013 @ 12:06pm

Shit, I'm filling a patent for "substance composed of two atoms of oxygen used to allow production of energy within biological organisms". I'm gonna be a trillionaire!

/EPO (I'd use /retard but I found /EPO to better describe the sentence)
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b, 28 May 2013 @ 12:23pm

Re:
If everything is patented, then you have to get permission to do anything. That way, if you don't have permission, anything you do is illegal. That way we won't have people doing stuff others don't want them doing. Fixes all sorts of problems!
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gorehound (profile), 28 May 2013 @ 12:30pm

Time to go pick come Broccoli and use it to smash against the Skulls of the Vegetable Head Corrupted Politician Types.

Broccoli is a lot more fun than a Bat.Put lots of gooey cheese that stinks on it too !

Time for all Broccoli Users to Stand up and be Counted ! The Battle lines are now Drawn.
We will fight you with our stinky cheese Broccoli Stalks.
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BearGriz72 (profile), 28 May 2013 @ 12:58pm

Re: "The patent on patenting"
I think you will find that there are currently three different "Patents on Patenting"��℗≈√∞, one of which is held by a 'Intellectual Ventures' shell company.

Prepare to be sued into oblivion!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 1:03pm

Re: Re:
"Permission society". It is a rather interesting variant of totalitarianism. If you can keep it running, I bet it will be a lot more effective than the anarcho spot-surveillance systems at play in Africa and the middle-east!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 1:52pm

In the meantime, careful what you eat in your salad.

And watch out for those "derivative works".
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Anonymous, 28 May 2013 @ 7:54pm

I wish they'd put "Vegetable Soup" out on DVD. I used to watch that when I was a kid. That was a cool show.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2013 @ 11:00pm

They're going to start patenting cows next, and their calf's. Then food will cost too much and most people will starve to death.

The End.
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