Aclutch of Canadian organic producers has signed on with a long list of mostly U.S. farm plaintiffs to “pre-emptively” sue Monsanto against any chance that the company could sue them over patent infringement.
Ottawa-based Canadian Organic Growers (COG), along with 20 other farm groups, 12 seed businesses, including Interlake Forage Seeds of Manitoba, and 26 individual farmers and farms, filed March 29 in a U.S. District Court in New York City.
The plaintiffs say the suit is “to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their crops ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed.”
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“This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto’s transgenic seed or pollen should land on their property,” said Dan Ravicher of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), a New York-based foundation representing the plaintiffs.
Monsanto responded in March 29 in a company blog, describing allegations in the suit as “false, misleading and deceptive.
“It has never been, nor will it be Monsanto policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seed or traits are present in (a) farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means,” the company said.
The PUBPAT suit says that between 1997 and April 2010, Monsanto filed 144 lawsuits against farmers in at least 27 different states for alleged infringement of its transgenic seed patents and/or breach of its licence to those patents.
