an argument designed to appeal to a court is not necessarily moral or true, and this is generally accepted as normal practice

It just has nothing to do with what we're talking about. The notion that Monsanto is suing farmers for seeds just blowing onto their fields false, and thus can't have anything to do with whether seeds should be patentable.

slow down and understand my words. it's perfectly fine and moral to take advantage of the fact that someone else's seeds have blown onto your land, but that's not an argument you can sell to a court. so publicly making a separate legally stronger argument is normal and reasonable behaviour that doesn't lessen them whatsoever

That seems utterly irrelevant. Trying to benefit is irrelevant. Trying to steal is what is relevant.

Consider the case where the gene edited crops actually implemented a dependency on roundup, and the neighboring farms were forced to use round up rather than did so because it was simply more useful.

No such dependency exists. The only rational reason to spray a crop with RoundUp is that you know you've sowed RoundUp Ready seeds; in any other circumstance you'd simply be killing your crop off. If you contrive a counterfactual where that's not the case, then obviously different fact patterns matter. It's like saying "well, sure, he shot the guy, but consider an alternate universe where shooting someone with a gun doesn't hurt them but instead immediately brings them to their recommended daily allowance of thiamine".

The claim that Monsanto sues people for accidentally or unwillingly having their patented seeds sown is simply false, full stop.

Farmer here, the above is absolutely correct. The notion that a farmer would "take a chance" on spraying an non-GMO planted crop with Roundup/Liberty is a pure fiction.

That is still irrelevant. You should not be able to sue someone for having your stuff. You should be able to sue them for stealing it. In this case it was not stolen. It was planted and spread naturally. And then the farmers chose to keep using the things that things that had basically fallen into their laps.

I really don't care if you think all patents are bogus. That is the most boring conceivable debate to have. There is nothing special about seeds to change the argument; that's all I'm here to say.

What's special about seeds is they reproduce with a bit of water, soil, and sunlight. My laptop does not and in fact will be very sad if I water it. Thus no matter how many patents Intel has on the things inside my laptop, there's a limit on how much I can ultimately do with the physical device.

Wouldn't this actually be an argument in favor of seed patents? I've been more or less a complete IP abolitionist for so long now that thinking in IP maxi terms is basically a foreign language to me now, but wouldn't they make the argument that it's necessary to allow protections where the good is A. hard to develop initially and B. easy to reproduce?

Exactly. GMO seeds are a best case for patent protection, in the same league as new drugs.

Nothing you can do with water, soil, and sunlight is going to produce RoundUp --- or a RoundUp-Ready seed.

It's perfectly reasonable to oppose all patents. Just don't pretend the wind, sun, and dirt somehow invalidate seed patents. There's no distinction to draw.

People have been sued for growing patented potatoes, unrelated to round up . . . Ok?

U take tuber u put it in ground it grows more tubers u try to sell BOOM illegal son .

Uh huh.

[Square bracket number citation link thingy https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-pepsi-farmers/pepsi...]

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He doesn’t respond so I win by default . Righteous troll:1 Capitalist corporation defender: 0

So, your objection to patents is that they are enforced when violated?

No. Objection when they are overly broad generic obvious and\or trivial

Am surprised even need to explain on this forum of coders. Many examples of bad boy software patents.

And you evidence that the patents for these potatoes was "overly broad generic obvious and/or trivial" is...?

Our illiterate ancestors have been doing it for thousands of years.

That's a whopper of a non sequitur. I was asking about the specific patent on these potatoes. Our ancestors have been this specific patented version of potatoes for thousands of years? Really?

No, they have been cross pollinating parents with desirable traits to produce an offspring with more desirable traits. The same thing Pepsi did to make FC5 potato.

Here is the patent for the FC5 potato.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6940004B2/en

Read it carefully because while the patent claims that it also would apply if transgenic modifications are added, the variety was developed through just classic breeding techniques, which are described in the patent in case you aren’t familiar.

And it's fine to patent specific (and novel) varieties of potato. The patent just applies to that specific variety, not to the general concept of improving potatoes. It's irrelevant that other specific varieties may have been bred for millenia.

So PepsiCo can utilize others prior breeding work, but prevents others from using their variety’s to breed with ?

If everyone who bred a potato patented it, we all suffer as breeders would be limited in what they can work with.

http://www.jwz.org

It's a honest argument.

It seems perfectly reasonable to most people that even if you own a patent on a seed that if I obtain it and can grow it I should be able to, in the way that your rights are generally exhausted if you sell a patented part to retail.

Monsanto would lose nothing in case where it was accidental and where the farmer intended it Monsanto would benefit from selling roundup.

Because of this, no plausible damages to Monsanto and that doing nothing is a perfect solution, the lawsuits seem egregious.