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

Christopher Weeks wrote:
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

I'm not wasting time reading a wikipedia article containing something related to contemporary political issues, but do recall the event and immediate follow up. It was unfortunate that the anti 'Big Ag' crowd heralded Percy as some sort of hero fighting the monster in this case, as it turned out he had made use of Roundup previously and was intentionally selecting GMO seeds to save and replant. To produce and distribute an entire documentary without clarifying points like this...

But it has remained unclear to me what the case is with patented life forms that 'accidentally' escape their owner's control and invade the environment of other individuals or the public in general? Reading an article on the Schmeiser case, it looks like the court's ruling didn't address this instance, but the hints from what they wrote is that they would not uphold any patent claim made about material that had 'trespassed' by unintentional distribution.

But But it seems to me the focus should be on the other foot of the issue. If a patented life form is 'trespassing' on you property and displacing something you wish to let grow/behave naturally or you have planted yourself, does the patent holder owe you for damages?

Without legislation to address this issue, we seem headed toward a culture of passive aggressive colonization. As annoying as 'invasive species' can be in the current environment when they are neutral representatives of different geographic regions, imagine if they were patented creatures whose presence established a property claim for some distant patent holder.

That's where my line of thinking goes, does this legislation address that issue in some manner? Would it be 'baby steps' toward more essential issues or is it a diversionary skirmish?

According to the govtrack link provided, the bill has no sponsorship from anyone on the judiciary committee so looks unlikely to be promoted and passed at this time.

Christopher Weeks wrote: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.

Sounds pretty common sense, like a good open source software license. The point that would interest me is could you grow and propagate a patented clone if it was for personal use without having a contract with the owner?