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GM patent rejected after 13 years

Patent for technology to fire genes into soy seeds thrown out.

The European Patent Office (EPO) has revoked a patent owned by global agricultural giant Monsanto for the genetic modification (GM) of soybeans, saying the technique it approved 13 years ago lacked "novelty".

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on May 04, 2007
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Thanks for your article on European Patent Office's decision to revoke Monsanto's species-wide patent on all genetically modified soybeans. I represented ETC Group at the appeal board hearing, and I can tell you that Monsanto cares deeply about its patent -- and is not happy about the outcome -- despite the fact that the patent expires in a matter of months. ETC Group, a civil society organization based in Canada, maintained its 13-year legal battle against Monsanto, not merely as a position against GM crops as you suggest, but because of Monsanto's far-reaching, exclusive monopoly on one of the world's most important food crops. It was shameful that EPO took nine years to schedule the first opposition hearing, and 4 more years to schedule an appeal tribunal. We won on technical grounds -- but the real issue is control and ownership of the world's food supply, and the rights of farming communities. The bigger message here is that the patent system is broken and hopelessly incompetent.
For more on ETC Group's position, and background on the patent, please see: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/

Posted by: Hope Shand | May 4, 2007 09:42 PM

It is strange that a patent is revoked after 13 years.Recently a broad patent on stem cells was
held invalid. If patents are revoked or held invalid
after years on one ground
or another, it raises
questions about their grant
in the first place.

Posted by: ravi srinivas | May 5, 2007 03:49 PM

Thanks for the news and agree with you...

Posted by: komik videolar | May 6, 2007 11:52 AM

Your report is very slightly inaccurate. It was not 'the technique' of transforming soya using a particle gun that the EPO Appeal Board found not novel, but the product claims: to (all) soya containing an expressed 'foreign gene'. We await the full written decision, but the Board seems to have considered that these claims would cover known 'wide crosses' eg between Soya glycine and Soya max.

The 'technique' claims were also found invalid, for a different reason - namely that the technique was not described in a way that enabled the skilled person to repeat it. Normally the EPO is reluctant to find patents invalid on this ground, at least where there is a detailed description (as there was here) but unusually Monsanto were unable convincingly to challenge the evidence about this, because they filed it themselves (when they opposed the patent originally).

The claims were also challenged as obvious, in view of the Klein disclosure in 'Nature' which you cite, and on other grounds (too broad, immoral, etc) but the Board, having found the claims invalid on other grounds, made no decison on these points.

Posted by: Tim Roberts | May 7, 2007 12:29 PM

Dear Sir, the link to the news item is broken. Could you fix it? Thank you...

[Editor's note. Apologies. Due to the recent site redesign, these links are temporarily not working. In the meantime, you can find them by inserting the word 'news' into the URL like this:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070430/full/news070430-14.html ]

Posted by: Enro | October 4, 2007 08:07 AM

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