H.R. 9681: Fair Seeds for Farmers Act

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr9681/text/ih

Basically, if this passes, new utility patents on plant varieties will no longer be issued and seed-producers will no longer be able to contractually encumber their customers. Seed-holders will be able to plant, save, and breed any seeds not covered by extant patents and contracts.

Neat!

There are still some protections given to breeders and researchers through the Plant Variety Protection Act and the Plant Patent Act of 1930 but they are much narrower and leave open the option for everyone to work with seeds they obtain legally.

So would this help someone like that Canadian farmer who was sued by Monsanto for saving roundup ready seeds that blew onto his property (if they were in the US)?

How would it affect something like the hop industry where plants are propagated by rhizome cuttings rather than seeds?

Coydon Wallham wrote:So would this help someone like that Canadian farmer who was sued by Monsanto for saving roundup ready seeds that blew onto his property (if they were in the US)?

It's probably worth reading some of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeiser -- it ended up turning out that the farmer purposely grew out the seeds and kept planting them, there was no accidental aspect to it. He was also apparently not fined. However, it would prevent e.g. Monsanto from patenting the "roundup-ready" gene (or any genes) in the first place, while allowing their current patents to stay in effect. Basically it'll take 20 years to completely reshape the agriseed industry, but if it is made law and stays law, it will do a lot of good in that regard.

Coydon Wallham wrote:How would it affect something like the hop industry where plants are propagated by rhizome cuttings rather than seeds?

If I understand it right, that kind of situation will continue to be specifically protected by the two laws this new act calls out as remaining unchanged. That is, a specific clone will stay protected as per current law, and new clones can still be protected going forward, but when you obtain one of those, you can use it for breeding -- you just can't clonally reproduce it and sell the clones without following the owner's rules.

(But I'm not a lawyer.)

Thanks for the information Chris.  Glad to see HR 9681 sponsors list geographically diverse Dems my local Rep. Randall WA-6, and Rep. Pocan WI-2 cosponsors along with an FL, AZ, TX.  That’s an all four corners of the US motif, excellent.  I’m weary of congress saying anything, much less legally about the functions of nature, but the word “No”, does appear at the beginning.  Now I’m wondering if there is no corporate angle here, what does this mean?  I’m a child of the 70’s back to the land and happy to see people/congress headed in that direction. Seeds are nature, and for all. Cheers