They sue people who have ~90%+ Monsanto crops on their fields who aren't paying royalties.
You can't get 90% of a different cultivar from pollen blowing multiple miles into your field. It doesn't work that way.
In fact, the company has offered to pay to remove accidentally contaminated crops for you, so that they can't be sued for having their IP on your farm.
What business is it of there's how I ended up with it? If I didn't sign a license agreement then I can do what I want with those seeds. That includes planting them, spraying them with roundup, then planting the survivors.
Their business model depends on farmers agreeing to licensing their seeds. Nothing says that those farmers have to agree to that. If those same seeds are available elsewhere, whether brought by the wind or just bought locally, a farmer who has NOT signed any sort of agreement can do whatever they'd like with them.
>What business is it of there's how I ended up with it? If I didn't sign a license agreement then I can do what I want with those seeds. That includes planting them, spraying them with roundup, then planting the survivors.
In that case, no, Microsoft would not be able to do anything to someone who found a Windows DVD modified to remove the EULA check:
1. Copyright would not be involved because copyright cover the reproduction and distribution of content. You did neither. It'd be the same if someone photocopied a book and you found the copy on the ground. You might argue that "well, you need to copy the software from the DVD to the system". If that's a problem, imagine that the mysterious individual also somehow installed the OS on your computer without your knowledge.
2. Patent law doesn't apply because patents (in theory) cover the application of techniques and technologies. Patents are irrelevant to end-users.
3. As stated before, the EULA also doesn't apply.
IMO, applying patents to living organisms is completely bogus, conceptually. It'd make more sense if the genetic information of the organism was copyrighted. Then it would make some sense to talk about unlicensed copies being made, although it'd still be rather tenuous. Copyright wasn't thought for self-replicating and randomly-modifying data. Has a law been broken if a disc undergoes mitosis? How many words would you need to change for a book to no longer be considered the same?
What's about all these comparisons with software in this thread ? It's completely irrelevant. Crops are used for people to eat, it's their means of survival. Microsoft can do what they want, it's still software, there is no comparison possible.
We should not be able patent/copyright seeds at all for obvious reasons, it's what people use to survive every day... And if that means that Monsanto will die and the research should be made public, then I'm all for it. No company should have that kind of power at all.
The 90% figure is Monsanto's figure not independently tested.
The Roundup corn was grown in the neighbouring field.
The Schmeisers had to sue Monsanto in the small claims court for $640, because Monsanto refused to remove the corn, nor would they allow the Schmeisers to do so.
They would only remove the corn if the Schmeisers signed a gag order which they were not prepared to do.
The Schmeisers ( now growing mustard as their seedstock no longer belonged to them ) paid their neighbours $640 to remove the corn.
They sue people who have ~90%+ Monsanto crops on their fields who aren't paying royalties.
You can't get 90% of a different cultivar from pollen blowing multiple miles into your field. It doesn't work that way.
In fact, the company has offered to pay to remove accidentally contaminated crops for you, so that they can't be sued for having their IP on your farm.