Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [136]
Intellectual Property Rights
When biotechnology companies patent the processes for creating transgenic foods, they demonstrate that they are motivated more by interests of economic self-protection than by concerns about feeding the world. Patented transgenic foods cannot be grown without a license and, therefore, require a fee. United States intellectual property laws permit patent owners to exclude anyone else from making, using, or selling protected aspects of transgenic plants for 20 years. The roots of current patent coverage date back to 1930 when the U.S. Patent Office granted limited intellectual property rights to plants propagated through methods that did not involve pollen. In 1970, Congress extended the rights to plants developed through traditional methods of pollination and cross-fertilization. Later, the Supreme Court granted full patent rights to microbes developed through recombinant techniques; the first was patented in 1980. The Patent Office extended full protection to transgenic plants in 1985 and to transgenic animals in 1988.13 Companies viewed these extensions as an incentive to develop new products. By 1995, the Patent Office had issued 112 patents for genetically engineered plants.
Patents elicit public distrust of the food biotechnology industry for the six distinct reasons discussed next: ownership, enforcement, injustice, “biopiracy,” animal rights, and “terminator” technology.
Ownership. Control of the “discoveries” of genetic engineering creates distrust because of the extraordinary breadth of some of the patents. One, for example, grants exclusive rights to all forms of bioengineered cotton; another covers all uses of reverse genes such as those used to create the Calgene tomato; yet another gives Monsanto exclusive rights to methods using certain antibiotic-resistance markers. Competitors of the companies holding such patents find their scope stunning, “as if the inventor of the assembly line had won property rights to all mass-produced goods,” or “as if Monsanto had just patented the yellow pages as a method for finding a telephone number.”14 Such concerns are quite justifiable. For example, just four companies control 65% of the patents owned by the top 30 companies working on transgenic seeds: Pharmacia (which, in 2002, owned Monsanto, Calgene, and other agricultural biotechnology companies), DuPont (Pioneer Hi-Bred), Syngenta (Zeneca, Novartis, and others), and Dow Chemical (Mycogen). Monsanto, for example, alone owns more than 100 patents for the processes used to construct transgenic corn and soybeans.
Enforcement. The aggressive tactics used by biotechnology companies to protect their patent rights cannot help but elicit distrust. To pick just one example: Monsanto added a $5 technology fee to each bag of Roundup Ready soybeans when the seeds became available in 1996. The company required farmers to pledge never to harvest the seeds, and to permit its agents to inspect the fields for three years. It used crop consultants and independent investigators as informants, and pursued more than 200 “plant piracy” cases in the courts. A spokeswoman explained, “Monsanto has invested a lot of money . . . and we will protect that investment.”15
Injustice. Questions of justice cause distrust of genetically engineered foods because of court decisions that consistently favor the patent rights of food biotechnology companies. Biotechnology patents rank second only to software patents in generating lawsuits. In a case considered critical to the continued economic viability of the industry, an Iowa seed company challenged patent protection as monopolistic and contrary to Congressional intent. The company, Farm Advantage, purchased 600 bags of Pioneer Hi-Bred corn seed from a third company for about $54,000 and resold the seeds to customers. In 1999, Pioneer Hi-Bred sued Farm Advantage for violating its exclusive patent rights. The Farm Advantage attorney asked the court to dismiss the case. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pioneer, a decision seen as a victory