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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

IANAL but it seems especially bad that the verdict was unanimous. I guess it really is time to shutter the USDA, because any pretense that this government supports the farmer, rather than the same corporate interests that all other agencies do, is demolished at this point.

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Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago? My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

I get that we're all supposed to hate Monsanto because they're a corporation (something which they apparently don't have in common with the YC-backed companies), but what's the incentive to develop "superior" seeds if the first farmer who buys them can farm them and resell them at a lower cost until the end of time?

Maybe we need a different type of IP protection for this kind of thing: If you're able to independently reproduce this patented gene on your own then by all means utilize it, otherwise buy from us. But I find it hard to find the farmer wholly sympathetic on this whole thing.

And after all, this decision makes its harder to introduce those supposedly-evil GMOs in our American farms, so this should really be considered a victory, amirite?

Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago?

Well, they can't buy such seeds at the elevator like they could 100 years ago. And now they can't plant elevator seeds period, without paying the Monsanto tax. (I know that isn't the explicit text of the ruling, but it is certainly its result for the most marketable crops.)

My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

Yeah I'm sure his unicorn herd is thriving. If you actually have a family connection to agriculture, you know that outside a few sheltered crops like avocados, "family" farming has been steadily supplanted by corporate farming. I'm not against that per se, because competition, but my point was to impeach the oft-repeated lobbyists' saw that USDA is "for the farmers! [and their children!]"

what's the incentive to develop "superior" seeds if the first farmer who buys them can farm them and resell them at a lower cost until the end of time?

Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup, to which these seeds are a completely complementary good. If Monsanto were good at business rather than evil at business, they would increase the price of Roundup and give the seeds away. (That would still be bad for both the environment and agriculture, but it wouldn't be as bad.)

this decision makes its harder to introduce those supposedly-evil GMOs in our American farms

News flash from the mid-90s: GMO crops are here already, in fact in many areas most farmers use them; that's why you can't avoid them at the elevator.

> If you actually have a family connection to agriculture, you know that outside a few sheltered crops like avocados, "family" farming has been steadily supplanted by corporate farming.

Gee asshole, it's almost like there's a fucking reason I said my grandpa's farm is small.

And it's not unicorns, it's horses, beef cattle and some heifers, and the hay required to feed them (and the alfalfa needed to restore the fields while they lie fallow).

> Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup, to which these seeds are a completely complementary good. If Monsanto were good at business rather than evil at business, they would increase the price of Roundup and give the seeds away. (That would still be bad for both the environment and agriculture, but it wouldn't be as bad.)

That might apply to this case, but that doesn't answer the general question.

Let's say some Big Pharma spends $15 billion to develop a cure for acne by using genetic manipulation techniques, but the cure has to be delivered by a refitted retrovirus and the retrovirus can be "farmed" by anyone with an incubation lamp and a supply of eggs into however many doses are desired.

No side product here, just the acne "cure". How do you allow for development and marketing of that? What's your solution?

Patent is what we have for short-term protection. I don't think any of us want to broach into the realm of infinite-length copyright. Do you have a better idea?

> And now they can't plant elevator seeds period, without paying the Monsanto tax. (I know that isn't the explicit text of the ruling, but it is certainly its result for the most marketable crops.)

No, they can't plant elevator seeds, spray them with Roundup, and then do the whole "aw shucks, looks like your seeds were the only ones that survived, who would've guessed?" routine when Monsanto comes a knocking.

> Monsanto already make a killing selling Roundup,

Your information is extremely dated. The patent for Roundup expired over a decade ago, and in the last 5 years the market has been flooded with cheap chinese made Glyphosate.

but isn't the main crux of the case the fact that monsanto changes roundup every year such that only the new strain soybeans is resistent to it?

if roundup was readily copy-able, how could this be possible?

Everything you wrote is completely confused. Monsanto doesn't invent a new strain of herbicide resistant crops every year. Roundup doesn't change. It is a trade name for a chemical with an expired patent, and many different companies make it.

The court record strongly suggests that farmers can acquire Monsanto seeds and treat them like normal crops; I've looked for cases where Monsanto sued someone that hadn't allegedly sprayed Roundup on their crops and came up blank (but would welcome a counterexample).

Does the supreme court ruling care whether Roundup was used? All I saw was that "copying" the seeds was not allowed, because they are patented.

They discuss it at length to point out that he should have known he was doing something wrong, but it does not appear to be a requirement as such. They found that he was not protected by exhaustion and that he was creating new patented articles, so it's hard to see how they could come to a different conclusion even without that part.

Of course, IANAL and you should get one if it's important to be sure of that.

Yes. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700973

>> I get that we're all supposed to hate Monsanto because they're a corporation (something which they apparently don't have in common with the YC-backed companies)

Can you name any YC-backed companies whose products are widely suspected to be causing unprecedented harm to society (or at least have the potential to) but are getting increasing legal immunity? We also hate corporations that enforce patents in software because it's ridiculous to patent software - how about patenting genetic codes?

How many YC-backed companies are simply facets of the half-trillion dollar global advertising industry, which is rooted in trademark monopolies and has the effect of getting people to pay huge premiums for cheap products by creating artificial differentiation between otherwise fungible goods?

Well, Hipmunk (to pick a random one I've happened to use before) makes it easier to fly around, which causes increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere, which causes increased sea levels and higher global temperatures. YC is funding the destruction of the planet!

> We also hate corporations that enforce patents in software because it's ridiculous to patent software - how about patenting genetic codes?

Well, that's why I mentioned alternative IP regimes. I don't believe one should be able to patent a "natural fact" (such as my own genes), but I also don't feel that the skill and capital required to move genes from one cell to another in a manner which is still viable and ends up being more useful is completely immaterial.

For software programs we have copyright, not patent, to protect us. Let me be very clear, I'm a big fan of the GPL, and it requires a strong IP regime to work.

But I'm not sure that "copyright" would apply exactly to genetic code either, though maybe Monsanto could make that work. Pick your poison. :P

I would agree with your last points, but I still see almost zero connection between the actual reasons why people hate Monsanto and Hipmunk.

I hope no one hates Hipmunk, it's the best way I've ever booked a flight, bar none.

I just hope the sea level holds up long enough to retire to some tropical island.

What "unprecedented harm" are you referring to here?

Are you kidding? There have been a number of studies on hive collapse, organ failure and other problems that appear to implicate Monsanto that have been widely discussed on HN. To be clear I'm not saying that any one of these studies absolutely conclusively points a finger of blame on Monsanto - I'm saying that there is enough suspicion of harm that saying we hate them just because they are incorporated is an even more ridiculous accusation than any of the above.

This is the very definition of FUD.

And if they weren't such aggressive lobbyists, I would agree with you. My original point was that they are much more deserving of close scrutiny at this point than any YC-backed company. Do you dispute that?

America has a strong environmentalist lobby that would like to kill GMO research and put agriculture back into the Stone Age. Monsanto needs a powerful lobbying arm for defensive purposes. A hostile government could hound them out of existence otherwise either through new legislation or through executive action by the EPA and USDA.

Organ failure from Roundup-Ready soy?

Claiming people hate Monsanto just because they're a corporation?

Non sequitur. I asked for you to expand on the "unprecedented harm" caused by Monsanto, and you gave me "organ failure". I asked a question about that claim, and you dodged it. Want to try again?

You asked me to expand on "unprecedented harm" in the context of reasons people hate Monsanto, and I gave you the 2 reasons I hear most often from people who hate Monsanto: hive collapse, organ failure, both of which I originally heard about on HN. Google either one and you'll see that these are exactly what I said they are: widely suspected as being caused by Monsanto GMO. The former, I'll agree, has practically been proven false. I never once stated definitively that Monsanto was causing harm, I said they were widely suspected, that they had the potential to, and that they were receiving additional legal protections - and that that is why people hate them. It's not comparable at all to YC companies, and the implication that HNers who hate Monsanto are hypocrites is false, and is, in fact, more ridiculous a claim than that Monsanto GMO crops cause this damage. Show me a full, capital-letter-to-period sentence that I have written that is untrue and I'll agree that I dodged something.

You write this as if the comments you originally wrote aren't right there in the thread.

>Can't farmers still use non-Monsanto seeds like they could 100 years ago? My grandpa's small family farm has been doing just fine without for decades, after all.

Monsanto is somewhat infamous for suing farmers for planting seeds from plants that were accidentally cross-pollinated with Monstanto crops. So to answer your question, you can't use non-Monsanto seeds if any of the farms around you are using Monsanto seeds.

I read this often in these threads, but have never seen a citation to such a case. Could you provide one?

I got my information from the documentaries "The Future of Food" and "Food, Inc" both of which have an obvious bias. I'm having trouble tracking down any other citations at the moment.

Here is a [again, biased] citation about Monsanto suing people for saving seeds, allegedly going so far as to forge documents: http://nelsonfarm.net/issue.htm

The main criticism that resonates with me is that protected genes like this case are kind of an anti-LGPL, turning naturally open systems into closed ones just by nature of life reproducing via airborne fertilization.

Now this wasn't a great test-case since the defendant was trying to specifically rip Monsanto off, but it is my opinion that it is Monsanto's responsibility to ensure their protected product doesn't spread on its own.

Monsanto developed a mechanism to prevent its crops from spreading by causing them to produce sterile seeds, but it pledged not to use the technology under pressure from anti-corporatist groups[1][2].

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[1]http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/terminator-seeds.asp... [2]http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2

I would certainly agree that it is in Monsanto's best interests to ensure their seeds don't spread on their own, if only because the presumption of innocence that must attach to each and every single case they'd try to prosecute.

I know that civil cases have an easier standard of proof but it would still have be difficult to prove every time that a farmer was trying to screw Monsanto over.

The ruling punted the issue of blown seeds, it was specific to this case - that the farmer knew and exploited a loophole to get 2nd gen crops while still agreeing not to.

Now, I disagree with the decision, but only on ideological grounds. From a rights standpoint, this ruling won't really answer the question of the canadian farmer and wind-blown Monsanto seeds.

Why would they comment on a case that not only is not in front of them, but in another country?

It's not that they would comment, but by constraining the case to what was presented (which they do not do sometimes - see judicial activism), the ruling isn't as broad as may be feared.

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