{"id":29629,"date":"2018-10-26T11:34:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T06:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=29629"},"modified":"2018-10-26T11:34:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T06:04:12","slug":"protect-patents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/protect-patents\/","title":{"rendered":"Protect patents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/protect-patents\/article23754278.ece\"><strong>Protect patents<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Delhi High Court (HC) judgment revoking Monsanto\u2019s Bollgard-2 patent is fraught with problems<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is Bollgard-2?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bollgard-2 is an insecticidal technology which uses a gene called Cry2Ab from the soil bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When inserted into a cotton plant, the gene confers resistance against cotton pests<\/li>\n<li>Monsanto\u2019s 2008 patent on Bollgard-2 protects several aspects of this technology: the modification of Cry2Ab to make it compatible with the cotton genome, the process of introducing this gene at a specific location in the cotton genome, and the protein expressed by the plant containing the gene<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why did Delhi HC reject this patent?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The judge reasoned that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Monsanto\u2019s Bt gene was useless to farmers unless inserted into a cotton hybrid, which farmers could then grow to repel pests. This insertion is carried out by seed companies, who cross a Bt gene-containing plant (from Monsanto\u2019s donor seeds) with their proprietary cotton varieties<\/li>\n<li>This crossing of plants was a natural and biological process. This argument undermined Monsanto\u2019s patent, because under <strong>Section 3(j) of India\u2019s Patents Act,<\/strong> a seed or a plant, or a biological process to create a seed or plant cannot be patented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Impact of the judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If argument regarding section 3(j) of Indian Patents Act is correct, few plant biotechnology innovations would be patentable in India. This is a dangerous conclusion because the lack of patent protection would discourage crucial research by the agri-biotech industry<\/p>\n<p><strong>Process of creating a hybrid<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are two key steps in the process of creating a Bt cotton hybrid<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><u>Step 1<\/u><\/strong>: The first is carried out by <strong>Monsanto<\/strong>, in which it modifies the Cry2Ab gene into a form which doesn\u2019t occur in nature. Next, Monsanto inserts this modified gene into cotton seeds, again an unnatural process that cannot happen without human intervention. Such seeds, called <strong>donor seeds<\/strong>, are then sold to seed companies<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Step 2<\/u><\/strong>: The second step is carried out by <strong>seed companies<\/strong> who hybridise cotton plants grown from the donor seeds with their own varieties. This hybridisation, as the High Court said, is a biological process that cannot be patented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The important thing for India is to keep incentivising the development of such technologies and to use them properly. Strong patent protection is a crucial part of this process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protect patents Context The Delhi High Court (HC) judgment revoking Monsanto\u2019s Bollgard-2 patent is fraught with problems What is Bollgard-2? Bollgard-2 is an insecticidal technology which uses a gene called Cry2Ab from the soil bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) When inserted into a cotton plant, the gene confers resistance against cotton pests Monsanto\u2019s 2008 patent on&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/protect-patents\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Protect patents<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":44,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}