Monsanto strikes again…with pigs this time.

Ok, so this isn’t exactly new news but I haven’t seen a whole of press coverage or even blog coverage so it’s worth getting out there. I came across the web site No Patents On Seeds today and followed a link to the Pig Patent case. Their summary is pretty spot on as far as I can tell. Monsanto appears to be “improving” standard and time tested livestock breed techniques and patenting them. More importantly their patents indicate that animals produced using these techniques or variations. Here is the money “disclaimer” so to speak:

“While the compositions and methods of this invention have been described in terms of preferred embodiments, it will be apparent to those of skill in the art that variations may be applied to the methods and in the steps or in the sequence of steps of the methods described herein without departing from the concept and scope of the invention. More specifically, it will be apparent that certain agents which are both chemically and physiologically related may be substituted for the agents described herein while the same or similar results would be achieved. All such similar substitutes and modifications apparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to be within the scope and concept of the invention as defined by the appended claims.”

I’m not a patent lawyer but I think it is pretty clear what is being said here. This patent is generally inclusive to animal breeding writ large and not just for livestock. I’m still trying to dig up some more information on this case, but this is pretty frightening. It makes me wonder, is there an “open source” movement for things like this? It’s pretty clear that all sorts of large corporations are heavily invested in patenting almost anything that they can and clearly what is considered Intellectual Property is being very loosely defined and interpreted by government regulators and courts.