From John Ripley
I was fascinated by the business implications of your report on the accidental transfer of DNA from genetically modified maize to native varieties (15 June, p 14).
I was particularly interested in the problems this presents for the owner of the patent rights. Would the courts enforce the payment of royalties once the principle of widespread accidental contamination had been established? The holder of the genetic patent could be sued by people who did not want the gene, while being unable to claim income from users who, despite not wanting it in the first place, will happily make use of it if it turns up by accident in their crops.
It is also interesting to speculate what the legal fireworks would be like if one GM company’s patented genes turned up in another company’s seed stock. The business implications seem to be endless.
What would happen if a patented gene for, say, resistance to a specific weedkiller, escaped and became widespread within a crop? Given the implications for the sales of that weedkiller, what would be the attitude of other weedkiller manufacturers? Would they even believe that the escape had been accidental?
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