SECOND MONSANTO ANTI-FARMER PATENT REJECTED BY PATENT OFFICE: PUBPAT Request Results in All Claims Being Ruled Invalid
NEW YORK -- June 1, 2007 -- In the second official Office Action to result from challenges filed last fall by the Public Patent Foundation ("PUBPAT") against four Monsanto Company patents related to genetically modified crops being used by the agricultural giant to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected all of the claims of a second patent.In the Office Action released yesterday, the Patent Office found that the prior art submitted by PUBPAT invalidated the patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,322,938 (the '938 patent). The Patent Office Examiner also found additional prior art and held that it, too, completely invalidated the patent.
Monsanto has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits asserting the '938 patent, and the three other patents challenged by PUBPAT, 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 company has the opportunity to respond to the Patent Office's rejection, but third party requests for reexamination, like the one filed by PUBPAT, result in having the subject patent either modified or completely revoked roughly 70% of the time. A decision in February found that another of the four patents was also completely invalid. Decisions regarding the other two challenged patents have not yet been issued.
"The Patent Office has agreed with our conclusion that Monsanto does not deserve this patent because they did not, in fact, invent anything," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director. "Making matters especially harmful to the public in this case is that Monsanto is using these undeserved patents to bully American farmers to the point that many of them are being forced completely out of business."
More information about the reexaminations of the '938 patent and the three other Monsanto patents challenged by PUBPAT, including a copy of the Patent Office's Office Action rejecting all 6 claims of the '938 patent, can be found at PUBPAT > Monsanto Anti-Farmers Patents.
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