Dear All,
Now we have received all pending company responses, we can draw some interesting conclusions:
Overall, none of the companies has disputed the report's main findings or conclusions such as impact of patents on monopolization in the sector or the use of technical toppings to render products of conventional breeding patentable. I think that is a good result. Obviously, some companies (especially BASF, Corteva, Bayer) have taken an effort to explain why they think that patents are necessary, but at the same time, all of them have tried to defend themselves by describing the initiatives they take for increased transparency and accessibility. Also a good sign I think, and none of these points we need to consider for the report.
What we may need to consider is our presentation of those companies that seem to support the general message of the report. Rijk Zwaan is very clear on this and provides some good quotes for us to use, of which we have now incorporated one. I just received their response: they approve but made some revisions, see text in blu attached.
KWS also seems to agree with (part of) our position so it may be good to be a bit less strong in our language as these are potential collaborators in the future. I therefore propose the below suggestions (in capitals) to the following original sentence: "This example illustrates the systematic way in which the company exploited the legal loopholes in the 2017 Administrative Council decision, which left random mutations open to patentability as inventions." --> DESPITE KWS CRITICAL RESPONSE TO the 2017 Administrative Council decision,[FOOTNOTE TO LINK PROVIDED BY KWS], THE ABOVE PATENT APPLICATION EXPLOITS THE SAME LEGAL LOOPHOLE THAT DECISION CREATED, which left random mutations open to patentability as inventions.
Regarding the factual correctness - the key purpose of the opportunity to comment procedure, we got the response from Corteva that we have addressed by deleting reference to that company under the pepper patent. In addition, several companies (Keygene, KWS) have indicated that they are not the sole-applicant of the patent discussed in the report. This is not a mistake but it is an omission that we can probably easy correct by including the names of the respective co-applicants.
A final, small 'correction' that we have received is from Bayer, indicating that it "believes that the actual number of patent applications filed by Monsanto/Seminis in 2018 and 2019 with claims directed to native traits is significantly lower than indicated with less than 10 patent applications filed". I assume we are very sure of the numbers presented in the report so I do not see a reason to change our numbers, or to refer in the report to this statement of what Bayer 'believes' to be the case.
Happy to discuss the above with you via email or phone.
Oxfam will reply to all responses received, and I will keep you informed about any follow-up that we may receive in that process.
Best regards,
Bram
Bram de Jonge | Seed Policy Advisor Sowing Diversity=Harvesting Security (SD=HS) Program Oxfam Novib | The Hague, The Netherlands | +31 (0)70 342 1 717 skype: BramDeJonge | http://www.sdhsprogram.org/