PUBPAT Initiated Review Leads PTO to Find All Claims of All Four Patents Invalid
Public Patent Foundation
NEW YORK – July 24, 2007 -- The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT)
announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has
rejected four key Monsanto patents related to genetically modified crops
that PUBPAT challenged last year because the agricultural giant is using
them to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt -
American farmers. In its Office Actions rejecting each of the patents,
the USPTO held that evidence submitted by PUBPAT, in addition to other
prior art located by the Patent Office's Examiners, showed that Monsanto
was not entitled to any of the patents.
Monsanto has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits asserting the
four challenged patents against American farmers, many of whom are unable
to hire adequate representation to defend themselves in court. The crime
these farmers are accused of is nothing more than saving seed from one
year's crop to replant the following year, something farmers have done
since the beginning of time.
One
study of the matter found that, "Monsanto has used heavy-handed
investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally changed
the way many American farmers farm. The result has been nothing less than
an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions that
have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the world,
including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed."
The lawsuits filed by Monsanto against American farmers include Monsanto
Company v. Mitchell Scruggs, et al, 459 F.3d 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2006),
Monsanto Company v. Kem Ralph individually, et al, 382 F.3d 1374 (Fed.
Cir. 2004) and Monsanto Company v. Homan McFarling, 363 F.3d 1336 (Fed.
Cir. 2004).
Although Monsanto has the opportunity to respond to the Patent Office's
rejections of the patents (U.S. Patents Nos. 5,164,316, 5,196,525,
5,322,938 and 5,352,605), third party requests for re-examination, like
the ones filed by PUBPAT against the four Monsanto patents, are successful
in having the reviewed patents either changed or completely revoked more
than two-thirds of the time.
"We are extremely pleased that the Patent Office has agreed with us that
Monsanto does not deserve these patents that it has used to unfairly bully
American farmers," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director.
"Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of the harm being caused to
the public by Monsanto's aggressive assertion of these patents, which
threatens family farms and a diverse American food supply."
More information, including copies of the Office Actions issued by the
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office rejecting the four Monsanto patents, can be
found at PUBPAT >
Monsanto Anti-Farmers Patents.
http://www.pubpat.org/monsantorejections.htm
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