Hello everyone,
Congrats on the decision, it’s a great step in the right direction indeed ! I do remain wary on its temporal aspects, and also on the limited reach this decision might have on the issue of native
traits, but they got the memo...
Below a PR from ECVC, FYI.
Best
Fulya
Fulya BATUR, PhD
Training, Advocacy & Legal Affairs
Kybele SRL (Seeds & Biodiversity)
0032.484.77.86.18
Subject: [New-gm-eur] Press release: EPO decision on patents on seeds: A step forward but concerns remain
Press release 19 May 2020, Brussels
EPO decision on patents on seeds: A step forward but concerns remain
On 14 May, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) issued
opinion G 3/19 (Pepper) concluding that
plants and animals exclusively obtained by essentially biological processes are not patentable. This is the outcome of a
long legal dispute between those who
oppose patents on living organisms and the unethical behaviour of the biotech industry, that aims to privatise nature.
The Enlarged Board of Appeal of EPO’s decision represents, for European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC),
an interesting step forward but one that could become useless if the scope of patents granted for genetic information of genetically modified plants or animals can still
be extended to seeds and animals from conventional crossing and breeding.
ECVC considers it contradictory and dangerous that the board decided this new interpretation of Article 53(b) EPC given in G 3/19 will not have a retroactive
effect on European patents containing such claims which were granted before 1 July 2017.
In the last few years, ECVC has been denouncing such patents not only because of ethical concerns, but also because of the clear contradiction with peasant
and farmer’s rights as established in Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
(ITPGRFA) and in article 19 of the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).
Beyond that, patents are the driving force behind biopiracy and the concentration of a huge market force in the seed sector, which reduces the diversity
of seed supply and causes seed prices to rise exponentially.
See
the entire text of the decision online here
See ECVC’s press release on this issue
back in December 2018
See ECVC’s Factsheet on patents on seeds in Europe
Contacts: Guy Kastler – ECVC Seeds Working Group: +33 603945721 (FR)
Antonio Onorati – ECVC Seeds Working Group: +39 3408219456 (EN, FR, IT, ES)
Alessandra Turco – ECVC Coordination Committee: + 39 3476427170 (IT, ES)
--
European Coordination Via Campesina
Rue de la Sablonnière 18, 1000 Brussels,Belgium
www.eurovia.org
info@eurovia.org
T: +32 (0)2 21 73 112
