Overview
The USDA describes Intellectual property rights in agriculture as: "patents
and plant variety protection certificates... frequently used
to protect technological advances. These rights allow their owners
to exclude competitors from "making, using, offering for sale,
or selling" an invention for a limited period of time. As the
pace of scientific discovery in agricultural biotechnology has accelerated
over the past few decades, the use of patents and other intellectual
property rights to protect these discoveries has increased tremendously."
In 1980, the US Supreme Court decided Diamond vs. Chakrabarty. In the case, the Supreme Court decided that patents may be granted for living organisms.
Current Issues
According to Richard Atkinson, Dating back to the establishment of the Land Grant College system in 1862, universities and other public-sector institutions have been the leaders in developing improved crop varieties that were transferred to farms and to the agricultural industry through cooperative extension services in the United States or equivalent organizations internationally. However, this model is changing rapidly because of in-creased intellectual property (IP) protection of agricultural inventions, as well as the development of a research intensive private sector that is making notable contributions to enhancing the productivity of U.S. agriculture. The private sector logically focuses on crops such as corn and soybeans where markets are large, which leaves the development of small specialty crops for the United States and subsistence crops important to the developing world mostly in the hands of the public sector.
Proponents state that this protection has led to an explosion in new innovations in agriculture. The argument goes that this work will literally save the world by creating a vast diversity of drought and pest resistant strains that can feed us all. Critics state that life should not be owned on moral grounds and that genetic engineering is dangerous. Their argument goes that this work will literally destroy the world by reducing diversity by forcing farmers to buy only round-up ready corn from Cargill or Monsanto thus reducing the ability of farmers to create local pest and drought resistant varieties. Another point made by crtics is that genetic engineering could create a pestilence.
How to patent your plant variety?
Here is a link to an excellent website that will walk you through the patenting of plant life.
Here is the link to the US Patent Office.
