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"Victoria Clare" wrote in message . 240.10... (Nick Maclaren) wrote in news:c6qbg3$ek6$1 @pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk: snip I believe that patenting a living thing is not, and should not be, the same as patenting a simple gadget. I once worked in a garden centre (nearly 25 years ago). Many of our plants were sold at 1p each when sold by the dozen, e.g.hedging. It was a large GC, with a drive through, sheds, office, parking and off course ourselves there to serve and inform. Yet.... somehow... many customers resented paying anything at all for plants and did so on similar grounds to your objections to patenting plants. Interestingly, many of these objectors were farmers who would not have taken kindly to the idea that they should do the same with their produce. But then, that folk for you... some just never think! Plants, being as natural as water, they would argue, should be provided for less than 1p each, or better still, free of charge, where free of charge means just that and not free at point of sale with monies later withdrawn from the public purse. That such attitudes are still around today perhaps explains why an excellent gardener can still only expect a pay rate which is a mere fraction of that which is automatically awarded to say, a thoroughly incompetent solicitor, accountant, journalist etc, any of which often cause even worse unpleantantness and an even bigger stink than say an incompetent janitor. Patrick |
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Victoria Clare29/4/04 9:51
10 (Nick Maclaren) wrote in news:c6qbg3$ek6$1 @pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk: You may ignore all such crap, until and unless the monopolists get the IP laws extended to covering such things. At MOST, you are forbidden to propagate plants FOR SALE, and that applies only to plants with Plant Breeder's Rights. And we hope not. I believe that patenting a living thing is not, and should not be, the same as patenting a simple gadget. A living thing is as much a commodity as anything else. Race horse owners shouldn't be paid if their mare produces a promising foal or their stallion covers a good brood mare? The semen straws cattle breeders send abroad should be free? In the case of plants, the grower and or breeder has had to spend hours working on it, has to bulk up and get together enough samples for testing, has to send the plant to various labs for that testing and perhaps comparison against other, similar plants, has to spend time and money on compost, pots, heating, lighting and then, finally, has to spend quite a lot of money licensing that plant as 'his product'. Without the people who do that sort of thing you would be growing only species plants or plants that had hybridised naturally in the wild. Many of the plants we all have now in our gardens have been bred by someone deliberately and some have been worth patenting, others haven't, so pass into the public domain freely. But just think of all the great rose nurseries there have been and imagine rose gardens without them. And that's just one plant. And I am prepared to bet that if you bred a plant that could bring you in a reasonable income each year, helping to make up for the otherwise small revenue of most nurserymen, you wouldn't sniff at it! ;-) snip I agree with what Patrick has said in his post. Coming fairly new to this life, it seems to me that some people think that a nurseryman is merely enjoying a larger extension of what, to them, is a hobby. But the average gardener is not spending money on staff wages, insurance, thousands of pounds on compost and water rates; working in rain and freezing cold in glasshouses or outdoors with a short half hour for lunch and then having people moan if a plant is raised by 50p from one year to the next when they're already reasonably priced! We have mercifully few customers who do this but the ones that do I could cheerfully strangle. I see my husband and my stepson working almost from dawn to dusk some days and then some idiot groans because a plant has been potted on so has to be more expensive. Why? Because that involves new pot, new compost, more labour. Why wouldn't a plant breeder be allowed to make money out of his work? I'm sure you do. Or don't you think you own your own living things - your brain, your hands? Would you allow someone else use of them or your expertise and training without payment? Phew! Sorry about that! ;-) -- Sacha www.hillhousenursery.co.uk South Devon (remove the weeds to email me) |
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"tuin man" wrote in
: "Victoria Clare" wrote in message . 240.10... I believe that patenting a living thing is not, and should not be, the same as patenting a simple gadget. I once worked in a garden centre (nearly 25 years ago). Many of our plants were sold at 1p each when sold by the dozen, e.g.hedging. It was a large GC, with a drive through, sheds, office, parking and off course ourselves there to serve and inform. Yet.... somehow... many customers resented paying anything at all for plants and did so on similar grounds to your objections to patenting plants. Um, I think you are putting words into my newsreader. I have no objection to people being paid (and paid well) for their work and enterprise, and I'm very pleased that (for example) Hill House are able to make a living through it. Well done them. I'm certainly not suggesting they should stand alone and defy the trend to register their plants - that would be mad: they'd just be mown down by others less scrupulous. I'm just not convinced that applying patents to something as complex as a living plant (or animal) should be exactly the same as applying a patent to a new mouse-trap. You need a lot more information to make a petunia than you do to make a mousetrap. Is this the only possible way to compensate people for their work? There have to be other ways of dealing with unique information and the creating of new things. You have to admit plant registration does restrict the spread of new varieties. A number of times I've found a plant via the Web that sounded fantastic and that I would happily spend quite a bit on, but there is no UK /european supplier, and the nursery that bred the thing is not set up to make international sales, or not interested in retail. The copyleft scheme I mentioned is a system for voluntarily making some information (sort of) free, in the belief that information that is free leads to new ideas and discoveries as more people use it. Victoria -- gardening on a north-facing hill in South-East Cornwall -- |
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In article , Sacha writes: | | A living thing is as much a commodity as anything else. Race horse owners | shouldn't be paid if their mare produces a promising foal or their stallion | covers a good brood mare? The semen straws cattle breeders send abroad | should be free? Let us say that I am a pigopoloist, and turn up demanding royalties from you for every rose you sell, because I have retrospectively patented the genus Rosa. That isn't far off what has been going on, and what the extortionists want more of. I wish that I were joking :-( Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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Nick Maclaren29/4/04 2:59
In article , Sacha writes: | | A living thing is as much a commodity as anything else. Race horse owners | shouldn't be paid if their mare produces a promising foal or their stallion | covers a good brood mare? The semen straws cattle breeders send abroad | should be free? Let us say that I am a pigopoloist, and turn up demanding royalties from you for every rose you sell, because I have retrospectively patented the genus Rosa. That isn't far off what has been going on, and what the extortionists want more of. I wish that I were joking :-( I understand what you're getting at now and do remember reading something about it a while ago. Now that truly IS disgraceful, I agree. Patenting yew trees so as to cream off Tamoxifen (?) profits would be a horrible example. I'm not at all clear as to why this is being allowed, though. -- Sacha (remove the weeds to email me) |
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Victoria Clare29/4/04 3:10
3 Sacha wrote in news:BCB6C1E8.1A522% : Would you allow someone else use of them or your expertise and training without payment? Actually, yes, I do, often. Not to the point of destitution, but to the point of helping someone out. So do you, I've noticed ;-). Yes but that does remain within the realms of *our choice*. I don't think the racehorse argument stacks up: you can't copy a racehorse, you can only charge stud fees (I think that's more like selling seed). Well, we talk about 'mother plants' when we talk about breeding and propagating plants under PBR and in that sense, there's little difference. The breeder of the plant/horse either finds a lucky sport/foal or carefully crossbreeds two plants/horses to get the desired result. I didn't mean to say that Hill House should not register its plants, and certainly not to imply that running a nursery was free or even cheap! I said that patenting a living thing is a different matter to patenting a gadget. I think that there we shall have to disagree. I still think that. As cloning becomes more widespread and more and more information of every type moves into the private domain, I think we are going to see this sort of debate more often! I'm sure. Nick has raised a very interesting point, for example. But cloning animals or plants is not the same as setting out to breed (by X-ing) new varieties. -- Sacha (remove the weeds to email me) |
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"Sue da Nimm" . wrote in message ... snip All the labels at our local centres say "Propagation illegal without a licence" [Someone has to say it - and we have already seen one variant] When I was a lad my girlfriend's mother used to attach the self same label to her every Saturday night :-) |
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"Victoria Clare" wrote in message after... Sacha wrote Would you allow someone else use of them or your expertise and training without payment? Actually, yes, I do, often. Not to the point of destitution, but to the point of helping someone out. So do you, I've noticed ;-). I don't think the racehorse argument stacks up: you can't copy a racehorse, you can only charge stud fees (I think that's more like selling seed). I didn't mean to say that Hill House should not register its plants, and certainly not to imply that running a nursery was free or even cheap! I said that patenting a living thing is a different matter to patenting a gadget. I still think that. I have bred for my own interest/fun various plants, Irises for example, and understand how long it can take to even get some to flowering (when you often chuck them away) , if one was to try to do it commercially why can't the person that has spent so much time, effort and money have some protection from the pirate that simply buys a few plants and micropropagates millions. If it's allowed to continue then there won't be the incentive or money to continue to breed new plants. It's just like the music and video pirates, it's plain theft. -- Regards Bob Use a useful Screen Saver... http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ and find intelligent life amongst the stars |
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Let us say that I am a pigopoloist, and turn up demanding royalties
from you for every rose you sell, because I have retrospectively patented the genus Rosa. That isn't far off what has been going on, and what the extortionists want more of. Our statute reads: "Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a plant patent therefore" Few plants are worthy enough to make the investments necessary to obtain, market and protect the patented material. Cheers from sunny New England, Mark |
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In article ,
IntarsiaCo wrote: Let us say that I am a pigopoloist, and turn up demanding royalties from you for every rose you sell, because I have retrospectively patented the genus Rosa. That isn't far off what has been going on, and what the extortionists want more of. Our statute reads: "Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a plant patent therefore" Few plants are worthy enough to make the investments necessary to obtain, market and protect the patented material. Cheers from sunny New England, I am jealous :-( But, to answer your question: jojoba and neem. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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".............. You have to admit plant registration does restrict the
spread of new varieties. A number of times I've found a plant via the Web that sounded fantastic and that I would happily spend quite a bit on, but there is no UK /European supplier, and the nursery that bred the thing is not set up to make international sales, or not interested in retail. ............" Sorry Victoria but I can't agree. There's no way that having Plant Breeders Rights(PBR) on a plant are going to hinder it's sales overseas, in fact it can work the other way, If I knew that if I could import a plant from say Australia and thanks to PBR I would be the only one licensed to grow it in the UK I would be much more interested than going to all the expense of importing it and just hoping that there wont be another 100 growers offering it within a year from the plants they had bought in the first year. The fact that a nursery finds it to expensive to go through all the rigmarole of phyto sanitary certificates etc to export one or two plants is not really surprising David Hill Abacus nurseries www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk |
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I think this statement needs clarifying
"........ "Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a plant patent therefore ..........." This refers to plants propagated by producing a lot of individual tubers, such as Potatoes and not to plants that can be propagated from cuttings and then produce a tuber such as Dahlias. Don't be confused by Canna Lilies, apart from not being Lilies also don't produce a "Tuber" despite this description being used for their fleshy root structure, more correctly it is a rhizome. -- David Hill Abacus nurseries www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk |
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