Dear all,
today we had a talk with German ministries of justice and agriculture, the Plant Variety Protection Office and the German Patent Office. We presented our findings from the report (latest version).
We found, the ministry of Justice is not likely to support our demands. We gained the impression, they (and the German patent office) do not much care about problems in plant breeding. They gave the message that new developments and technologies create new situations and markets .. while we were trying to explain that we just want to safeguard traditional breeder and their rights.
They agreed, there are some problems with the KWS patent as granted (they consider it as being not a good example how to apply the new rule in best way) but also said, that if the new rule would be applied properly, problems are solved. They assumed that as long as a breeder does not perform random mutagenesis himself, he will have no problem... what is a complete nonsense.
They say, they will wait for court cases to come up, and only react to these cases. We were explaining that prospective assessment would be needed and political decisions taken before it is too late.
Amongst the European governments, they see no move at all, to organise for the conference.
In short, it looks like the position of this ministry is dominated and guided by vested interests which are not those of the public.
But we also got the feeling that the experts from PVP office and also potentially also from ministry of agriculture share (some of) our concerns. We will try to get in closer contact and further exchange.
Next steps: After we published our report, we will ask for a meeting. We then can consider to start our 'tour' in Germany (at one or both of the ministries) or maybe go to another country first which may be more supportive. Thus definitely some more points for discussion ..
have a nice weekend!
Christoph