"Gene Schurg" writes:
Is it fair that I spend my time and selective breeding to create a navy blue
phalanopsis and get all kinds of awards on it only to sell a clone of it and
have someone else make a thousand copies?

If I pay my good money for a plant don't I have some rights to make copies
of it? What if it sends out a keiki on its own? Do I have to destroy that
keiki? Would I go to jail if I sell that keiki?

Patents were originally introduced to promote research, and to give
the researcher a chance to get his investment back.

What is happening now, especially in the US, is that major
corporations are taking out patents and using them to force small
businesses out of business. This does not promote research.

I also have an issue with patenting _a_ plant. The patent system was
originally introduced to patent processes. You found a way to make
rubber stable? Wonderful, here is a patent, thank you for doing
something worthwile for the state of science.

What is happening now is that especially the US patent office has
almost no effective way to control how innovative something is before
a patent is granted. People are allowed to patent business processes
(The Amazon 1-click patent, for instance). People are also,
apparently, allowed to patent what results from hybridizing known
plants. I think this is wrong because there is not a fundamentally new
way of doing things involved in these patents. The 1-click patent is
self-evident to someone in the business, hybridizing a plant is also
self-evident - we have been doing it for a couple of decades.

I also have an issue with the protection time of patents. Patents are
like using dynamite to go fishing - either you get a patent, in which
case you are protected for what amounts to a working lifetime, or you
don't. There is no in-between. I don't think this promotes science.

There is also nothing to stop people from submitting frivolous patents
to the patent office. If you hand over something substandard, you
should have to face some kind of music. People are wasting the patent
office's time with all kind of junk now, and that makes the quality of
the approval process deteriorate.

I also think there should be accountability if patents are to be
awarded for genetically modified species. Have you made something that
is wonderful? Great, but if it breaks something else because you are
ignorant of the effects of what you have _really_ done, there will be
hell to pay. I think that would reduce the rush to patent
everything. Combine this with the "can't patent an implementation,
only a process" thought, and we should be a lot safer.

All in all, I think that something is very rotten in the state of
Denmark. The patent system needs to be changed, and this also applies
to patents already granted.

Of course, this won't happen. In 20 years, all patents will be owned
by a small number of corporations, and we will have to pay to be
allowed to breathe. You don't want to know what will happen if your SO
becomes pregnant.

Geir