Word: patent
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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From Monsanto's point of view, the set of new genes--which others have dubbed Terminator--is a perfectly legitimate way to protect their intellectual-property rights. Not everybody agrees. And in the 10 months since the patent for the seed-sterilizing technology was issued, Terminator has become the focus of a grass-roots protest that is spreading through the Internet like, well, wildfire...
...heat Monsanto is taking, the company did not create Terminator. The technology was developed by the USDA and a Mississippi seed company known as Delta and Pine Land, and the patent was awarded to both of them. Monsanto later made a $1 billion-plus offer to buy Delta--an offer that was quickly accepted...
...clever science isn't necessarily popular science, and Terminator has made a lot of enemies, particularly in the developing world. The USDA and Delta and Pine Land have filed Terminator patent applications in dozens of countries. In many of those countries farmers can't afford to buy top-of-the-line seeds every year and must rely on saving a portion of each crop in order to plant their fields the following year. Monsanto insists that weak patent protection in many of these countries makes a technology like Terminator especially important. But that argument carries little weight in parts...
...somebody who had the cure for AIDS refusedto share it and was protected under patent law,people would be a lot more up in arms," he said...
...Patent disputes are erupting over online auctions just as they emerge as a killer app for sites such as Ebay and Onsale. The latest conflict pits comer Priceline.com against a Virginia inventor who claims he got to the patent office a year and a half earlier. MORE...