Many thanks Christoph and writing team,

I am impressed with the progress made. Sections 1 to 6 are much more accessible now, and the examples in 7-8-9 are still very strong. The intro’s of, and distinction between, sections 7 and 8 are still quite difficult to grasp for a general audience, but I think the clear examples make up for that. I have included a few suggestions in the attached document.

Regarding your comments on providing companies an ‘Opportunity to Comment’, I think there are some misunderstandings:

First, we will NOT share the report with any company. The Opportunity to Comment merely involves that we send the specific, relevant statements about a particular company to that company by email (as confidential information not to be shared publicly) in order for that company to a) check the correctness of the factual information provided, and b) to possibly give an alternative explanation or reject our statement.

We can then decide what to do with the reply: In case we must conclude that we made a factual mistake, we better change our text in order to preclude possible legal measures (more likely in some jurisdictions than in others). But there is no obligation (nor intention!) to include in our report a company’s response on the statements that we are making. There is no way we want to allow companies to influence the content our work!

In case of Rijk Zwaan, we want to explain our position because we have a good working relation with that company. Still, this should not influence our statement about them. However, in case they want to explain why they applied for these patents and in case this explanation suits our needs, than we may decide to refer to their response in our report.

I hope this clarifies!

We will approach Rijk Zwaan and the 2 other Dutch companies this week and get back to you if we receive any responses. We will likely give them 7 working days to respond. As we do not want to cause any delays for NPOS, please feel free to continue along your preferred timeline and publication deadlines.

Kind regards,

Bram

From: Npos_2018 <npos_2018-bounces@testbiotech.de> On Behalf Of Christoph Then
Sent: Friday, 27 March 2020 17:08
To: npos_2018@testbiotech.de
Subject: [Npos_2018] the report nearly final draft (deutsch und English)

Dear all

please see attached nearly final draft versions of the report in German and English. Longer than expected, but I hope easy reading.

the summary is still missing, the glossary also still has to be integrated. We try to get everything ready next week. We also still have to go to final editing and layout. So please come back with comments needed during next week.

Please do not distribute the draft widely at this stage. If Oxfam wants to inform the Dutch breeders, I think this is ok. However it has to done confidentially.

Further I would not invite them officially for comments - this would mean to delay the report till June. I would offer it as embargoed versions just for their own information. Of course if they want, they can send their comments. But we will offer to integrate these comments or delay the report till they 'agree' or something like that.

If we receive some interesting we will have to make our own decisions within No Patents on Seeds! but can not allow these companies to influence our work.

Have a nice weekend, a lot of fresh air and good health.

Christoph