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Post by JWK on Jan 1, 2003 6:52:14 GMT -5
I just read an interesting article on patents explaing the extremes to which human beings 'own' life itself.
Corporations have patents on rice that has fed farming communities for thousands of years- without the communities evn knowing what was going on now they can be sued for growing this rice unless they buy the seeds fresh from the owners of the patent every year.
The human genome has been Patented, and therefore humans are now officially owned by a select few.
There are patents on everything, so chances are someday by doing or being the things we take for granted someone will have the legal right to slap you in the face with a massive lawsuit.
...Hey buddy, youve been breathing my patented air for over fourty years now, you owe me big time! My lawyer has the details for you... see you in court!
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Post by Wycco on Jan 2, 2003 10:01:56 GMT -5
LOL...
Re: Rice...
Its a shame but, in order for people to develop certain strains of rice that increase yield... companies HAVE TO make it profitable. Thus, they patent new strains they develop. It's not just rice... I do alot of gardening- alot of the seeds I grow have legal notices on them saying I cannot sell the seeds or the plants that I grow from that pack of seeds due to them being patented... strange but fair I guess- if the company developed that strain.
Re: Genome
Once again laughable- BUT has a very good reason behind it. First off- they can't sue people for replicating human beings... but they can for reproducing the genome list they have put together...
A lot of work and man-hours went into developing the list- they wouldn't want someone selling the list of genes that THEY discovered... think of it this way... If Michelin created a map of France and Rand McNally photocopied that map and sold it as their own... That would be wrong... right?
However, if Rand McNally, do their own work and develop their own map of France... they are free to sell it. The human Genome, in my mind, would be much the same... its a map.
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Post by Topcontender on Jan 2, 2003 11:17:19 GMT -5
Oh i have seen some silly patents. You know it is possible that if you put air freshener into the air, you could patent that and charge everyone.IT would be a tough sell, and granted it sounds nuts. Our patent laws are nuts too.
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Post by greg99 on Jan 2, 2003 11:55:14 GMT -5
Have you patented Shamu Croaks? ;D
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Post by Topcontender on Jan 2, 2003 13:53:22 GMT -5
i think SC would be under trademarks.
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Post by thajavaman on Feb 16, 2003 23:30:56 GMT -5
I suppose you guys know this already, for it was a headline during the Seatle WTO dissaster. I wish I remembered company names, but I'm so bad with names. There's a large Texas Corporation that has patents in like 200 different kinds of seeds which are farmed in India.
I was writting down how it is that this Corporation uses the patents on soybeans and sunflower seeds to -as Wycco said- be profitable, and how this world trade has increased poverty levels in India, but:
-I swear, not only I was being incoherent (as only I can be),
-but for the millionth time i've closed a window I thought I'd posted but had only previewed so wearing the usual anger that brings, I wasn't going to go again at it, and
-I was appearing too biased in that Interantional Trade 'quilombo', so I'd rather not and basically just state that patents on living organisms, like seeds. Seeds that have been grown and harvested for thousands of years. Patents on these have unallowed farmers to plant anything but what they are told by a bigger organism that does not see them as human beings but as factors of production, and I think it sucks... sorry if I hurt any feelings with that
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Post by BrainFade on Feb 16, 2003 23:43:21 GMT -5
Java - is the company you're thinking of called "Monsanto"?
Wycco - there are arguments that high-yield, intensive (i.e. Westernised) agricultural methods are not necessarily the solution to the world's food crisis. I'd love to explain, but I'm heading towards the end of a graveyard shift (0:00 - 8:00) and my brain is too tired to think straight. Next time I'm at work, I'll elaborate...
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I wish I could fly
