The latest decison of the European Patent Office decided on Thursday will revoke certain patents that recently provoked much indignation among public opinion since they concern vegetables obtained exclusively by natural processes. However, this latest move by the EPO does not prohibit biotech companies from extending the range of their patents to such plants or animals. How so? Biotech companies can still obtain patents on specific plant or animal characteristics, such as resistance to a herbicide or a pathogen.
PRESS RELEASE **** European Patent Office's decision is a smoke screen allowing patents on life Brussels, July 5, 2017 - The Administrative Council of the European Patent Office (EPO) decided on Thursday, June 29 "to exclude from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process". This decision will revoke certain patents that recently provoked much indignation among public opinion since they concern vegetables (tomatoes, cabbage, peppers,...) obtained exclusively by natural processes, such as crossing and selection. However, this latest move by the EPO does not prohibit biotech companies from extending the range of their patents to such plants or animals. How so? Biotech companies can still obtain patents on specific plant or animal characteristics, such as resistance to a herbicide or a pathogen. With conventional transgenesis, the protection of the patent does not extend only to plants and animals resulting from genetic manipulation, but also to those that are accidentally contaminated by the GMO, for example by pollen transported from a field to another by wind or pollinating insects. Molecular markers, however, make it easy to distinguish the patented trait from any native trait of plants and animals obtained exclusively by natural processes of crossing and selection. With new genetic manipulation techniques such as microbiological mutagenesis or CRISPR-Cas9, the new trait is described in the patent in a manner that does not distinguish it from native traits. Therefore, patent protection also extends to all plants and animals that naturally have this trait. If they are not prohibited, such patents will allow the seed industry to seize all of our agricultural biodiversity within a few years, thus controlling all of our food. The European Coordination Via Campesina is asking European institutions to prohibit any patent whose protection can extend to plants and animals, native or derived from traditional selections according to natural processes such as crossbreeding and selection. Contact: Ramona Duminicioiu (ECVC Coordinating Committee member) : +40 746 337 022 EN, FR, RO Guy Kastler (Confédération Paysanne) : +33 6 03 94 57 21 FR