Hi all,

Many thanks Christoph for the below proposals. It would indeed be very useful to have a clear text proposal for all of us to use in our upcoming influencing activities with (national) policymakers.

The 3 points you phrased below make sense to me. Would it be possible to formulate brief justifications/explanations (possibly backed with some numbers from Ruth) for each of the three points that we can use in tandem?

I am also a bit puzzled what to do with the EBoA’s decision to maintain all patents and applications from before June 2017. I think many other stakeholders find this confusing and/or problematic so it may be strategic to include this in our advocacy. If the AC wants to take up this point (not sure whether that is possible though) they may be persuaded to also include the other outstanding issues as formulated below and deal with them in one go.

2 updates from my side:

Our SD=HS contractholder at Sida (the main donor of the SD=HS program that Oxfam Novib coordinates) has indicated interest to discuss the remaining loopholes in the patent system in Europe as indicated in the NPOS report and our press releases. She has proposed to have some kind of learning event on this in July. I will keep you informed and we could probably invite a representative of NPOS to the meeting.
I told you about Corteva inviting Oxfam for a discussion on patents. They made the invitation in name of CropLife, and also indicated an interest to discuss the matter with NPOS. After a quick internal go-around, we are not yet sure what to do with this and would like to hear the opinion of the NPOS members on this first. I think there are 3 options:

We can have a discussion between Oxfam and Corteva/CropLife
We can have a discussion between NPOS and Corteva/CropLife
We can decide not to have the discussion.

Please let me know what your opinion is on this matter and we will go back to Corteva on that basis.

Best regards,

Bram

From: Npos_2018 <npos_2018-bounces@testbiotech.de> On Behalf Of Christoph Then
Sent: Friday, 15 May 2020 09:32
To: npos_2018@testbiotech.de
Subject: [Npos_2018] !! after the decision - how to go on?

dear all,

Thanks to all of you for quick reactions yesterday and to Johanna to send everything out in time!

So what are the next steps?

there is one goal and one major strategy and a limited time frame:

> We have to move the political decision makers to exclude all breeding methods and products used within conventional breeding

> the strategy can be changes in national patent laws or decisions via the Admin Council. Or both.

> if we miss the momentum of the meeting of the AC in June, we might loose the most relevant opportunity.

What does that mean for our work?

we need a wording to show how the problem can be solved; this should brought forward to all relevant political decision makers asap.
we need a strong justification to show the issue is urgent
We have to identify some allies for this decisive period (Plantum?)

Next steps:

We draft a letter to the AC with possible solutions to be sent next week.

Then we approach selected governments.

In parallel we work on a new factsheet: we again will show the problem with rule 28 (2) and the interpretation by the EPO. I will try to work with Ruth. I think we will need a factsheet with some cases from examination processes. Interesting (!): We might have lost the Carlsberg case by the decision of the EBoA - the patent application was filed before July 2017. I guess the same problem arises for severed broccoli and the lettuce and the pepper.

The text for solutions: we have to make a proposal in writing how a text may look like that can be adapted by the AC or national laws.

How about a phrases like that (I try to avoid the word 'conventional breeding' which may take us some time to define):

"For the interpretation of rule 28 (2), the AC shall adopt the following:

Spontaneous, random, non targeted processes such as physico-chemical mutagenesis cannot escape rule 28 (2). Only targeted interventions such as transgenesis and genome editing may give rise to patentable inventions.
All products used in or emanating from ‘essentially biological processes’ are captured by rule 28 (2), including all breeding material plant/animal parts, cells and genetic information.
Patents on products derived from technical process in breeding do not extent plant or animals that fall under rule 28(2)."

please let me know your comments.

cheers

Christoph