(The following article is from Pubpat, a not-for-profit legal services organization that represents the public’s interests against the harms caused by the patent system. I highly recomend checking them out at pubpat.org)

New York, NY — September 29, 2006 — The Public Patent Foundation
(“PUBPAT”) filed formal requests with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office today to review and ultimately revoke four of Monsanto
Company’s patents related to genetically modified crops that the
agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue – and in some
cases literally bankrupt – American farmers. In its filings, PUBPAT
submitted prior art showing the patents were obvious in light of earlier
work by other inventors and, as such, should have never been granted.

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. The Center for Food Safety found
in its study of the matter 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.”

“Monsanto’s aggressive assertion of its patents is not only obnoxious
and offensive to the core fabric of American life and culture, it is
also causing substantial public harm,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s
Executive Director. “It appears as though Monsanto wants to control all

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