{"id":1636,"date":"2010-07-27T15:09:33","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T14:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2010-07-27T15:09:33","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T14:09:33","slug":"broccoli-and-tomato-patents-european-patent-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1636","title":{"rendered":"Broccoli and tomato patents &#8211; European Patent Office"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"img alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1637\" style=\"width:150px;\">\r\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Broccoli-and-tomatoes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Broccoli-and-tomatoes-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\r\n\t<div>Broccoli and tomatoes<\/div>\r\n<\/div>This week, at the European Patent Office in Munich, the appeals board is debating whether to allow patents on broccoli and tomatoes.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents say this is essentially a biological process is not patentable.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Similar patents already exist, but the broccoli patent will set a precedent and affect future cases regarding plant or animal patents.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the patent office\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Broccoli and tomatoes 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}