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Who owns broccoli and tomatoes?
Protest action at the European Patent Office in Munich on patents for food
Munich,
20 July 2010. The coalition
"No-patents-on-seeds" [1]
is protesting today against the patenting of seeds, plants, animals and food at
the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich.
The occasion is the first hearing with regard to a fundamental decision on the
nature of European patents. On the basis of patents granted on broccoli and
tomatoes, and the food products made from them, the Patent Office will decide
whether natural resources can continue to be claimed as "inventions". In a
symbolic action the demonstrators are destroying copies of patent applications
in shredders at the site. More than 1000 applications for patents on food have
been submitted to the EPO. The coalition expects that the EPO will not revoke
the controversial patents.
"If
patents on broccoli and tomatoes are not banned, the floodgates will open
wide," said Christoph Then, Greenpeace's expert on patents. "A handful of agrobusinesses
and food corporations can have control in future over all food production,
increasing dependency and raising prices for farmers and consumers. The sell-off of the natural basis of life can
be stopped now only through new patent laws." The alliance has already gathered
100,000 signatures from citizens supporting a legal ban on patents for seeds,
plants and animals.
The
English biotech company Plant Bioscience Limited has held a patent since 2002
on broccoli with a high content of glucosinolates. These bitter-tasting
components lend broccoli its typical flavour and are also supposed to be
anti-carcinogenic. Two agrobusinesses filed an opposition at the EPO against
the patent on this lucrative broccoli. Another opposition has been filed
against the patent on the so-called wrinkled tomato; this patent covers the
breeding and marketing of a tomato with low water content which is easy to
process industrially. However, the EPO in May confirmed a patent on sunflowers
which encompasses seeds, the plant and patent protection for sunflower oil.
"Limits
have to be set at last for the EPO", said Bell Batta Torheim from the
Development Fund, an environmental and development organisation. "An office
that plays by its own rules and is financed by patent fees will in case of
doubt confirm any patent. No-patents-on-seeds has been informing the public of
scandalous patents granted by the EPO for several years. European patent laws
must be amended so that this kind of patenting finally stops."
The governments of Germany
and the Netherlands have
announced that they will do all they can in Brussels to see through more stringent
European laws on patents. No-patents-on-seeds is calling for a ban on patents
for seeds, plants, animals, their genes and breeding material.
Notes to editors: For more information, please contact Dr. Christoph Then
at +49 151 5463 8040, or Bell Batta Torheim at +47 41 12 34 04. For photos of
the demonstration at the European Patent Office, please call +49 40 30618-376
(Greenpeace) . More detailed information is available at: www.no-patents-on-seeds.org.
[1] The coalition on „No-patents-on-seeds" consists of following
organisation: Development Fund (Norway), Berne Declaration (Switzerland),
Greenpeace, Swissaid (Switzerland), Misereor (Germany) and Kein Patent auf
Leben (Germany).
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