Law Weblog

Broccoli and tomato patents – European Patent Office

Tuesday 27 July 2010 at 3:09 pm | In News | 1 Comment This week, at the European Patent Office in Munich, the appeals board is debating whether to allow patents on broccoli and tomatoes.

Broccoli contains cancer-fighting (anti-carcinogenic) properties and in 2002, a British company Plant Bioscience Ltd was granted a patent by the European Patent Office for a method it developed which identified the anti-carcinogenic properties of broccoli, enabling the company to selectively breed plants with a high concentration of this property.

But the patent also covered the plants selected and produced by this method, not just the technical process itself, essentially giving the British company a European patent on broccoli.

Opponents say this is essentially a biological process is not patentable.

Tomatoes too have been patented. In 2000 an Israeli company that found a way to breed tomatoes with less water was awarded a patent. Opponents including Greenpeace have appealed against these patents.

Similar patents already exist, but the broccoli patent will set a precedent and affect future cases regarding plant or animal patents.

The European Patent Office has responsibility only to determine whether a new technology is innovative and applicable enough to be given a patent, the broccoli breeding techniques are advanced enough to warrant patent protection.

It is not the patent office’s responsibility to assess social, economic, or ecological implications, which means new European regulations specifically banning patents like these would be needed to stop the broccoli initiative.

The appeals board should decide on the broccoli patent this week, but their decision will probably not be made public until later in the year.