Update on Schmeiser/Monsanto Trial Before Canada's Supreme Court

Farm News from Cropchoice
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2/2/2004
Observations on the Supreme Court hearing of Percy Schmeiser
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by E. Ann Clark, Ph.D.

Department of Plant Agriculture

University of Guelph (eaclark@uoguelph.ca)

(Monday, Feb. 2, 2004 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- I am not easy to
impress, but young Terry Zakreski, the lawyer representing Saskatchewan
farmer Percy Schmeiser, made an argument before the Supreme Court of
Canada [Jan. 20, 2004] that was nothing short of brilliant. Not only was
it original, with razor-sharp logic, but the delivery was calm, focused,
deliberate, and articulate.

Picture the scene. The nine Supreme Court judges, resplendent in their
red robes, file in and take their places at the far end of the room. The
tall, slender, pale lawyer from Saskatoon sits alone on the Appellant¹s'
(Schmeiser) side of the aisle, flanked by three lawyers for the Respondent
(Monsanto) across the aisle. Behind Zakreski are 2 pairs of lawyers and a
whole lot of vacant seats. The pairs represent two sets of Interveners
supporting Schmeiser's position: first, a consortium of 6 NGOs (Council of
Canadians, Action Group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration, Sierra
Club, National Farmers Union, Research Foundation for Science, Technology
and Ecology, and the International Center for Technology Assessment), and
second, the Attorney General for Ontario. Stacked up behind the Monsanto
contingent are a bevy of two or three lawyers for each of the other
Interveners granted permission to speak in support of Monsanto's
position - the Canola Council of Canada, BIOTECanada, and the Canadian
Seed Trade Association. The audience at the back of the courtroom is
limited to 50 hardy souls, most of whom have braved hours of truly
bone-chilling conditions on the steps of the Supreme Court to ensure a
place at the proceedings.

Conduct is formalized, with the Appellant and Respondent each accorded one
hour to make their case, while the five Interveners are given from 7.5 to
15 minutes each. The Judges are free to interrupt at any time to
challenge the lawyers. The Appellant has 5 minutes to rebut. It is all
over by 1PM, when the judges retire to deliberate.

When he rises to face the Supreme Court of Canada, Zakreski presents a
three-fold argument.

1. The actual wording of Monsanto's Patent O830, entitled
"Glyphosate-Resistant Plants" consists of 52 claims encompassing various
aspects of the RR gene itself and the RR cells that result from inserting
the gene. But most critically, Monsanto's patent makes no reference to
seeds, plants, or crops. Thus, although its actual patent ends at the
cell, Monsanto has chosen to commercialize its patent rights at the level
of seeds, plants, and indeed, whole crop fields. Paraphrasing from
Zakreski's argument, while Monsanto says that they don't own Canada, they
nonetheless claim every province and territory in Canada.

This is a critical distinction, because a seed or a plant is a higher life
form, and in its ground-breaking Harvard Mouse ("oncomouse") Decision
last year, this very same Court had ruled that higher life forms could not be
patented in Canada. Zakreski cited other evidence showing that the Patent Act
was never intended to apply to seeds or plants, which instead are covered
under the Plant Breeder's Rights Act.

Thus, in order to support Monsanto's patent infringement claim against
Schmeiser, the Court would necessarily have to conclude that seeds and
plants - higher life forms - are subject to the Patent Act, directly
contravening both their own decision on the Harvard oncomouse case and the
wording of the Patent Act itself. A finding against Monsanto's claim
would not deny Monsanto, or indeed, the biotech industry, their lawful
patent rights. But it would affirm that patent rights are as actually
worded in the patent - no more, and no less.

Either way, the ruling of the Supreme Court will not affect the provisions
of the Plant Breeders Rights Act, which has been and will continue to be
the dominant vehicle for protecting the intellectual property rights of
innovative plant breeders in Canada. Paraphrasing again from Zakreski's
closing statement, it is not Schmeiser's fault that Monsanto chose to
protect its intellectual property inappropriately, under the Patent Act,
instead of using the Plant Breeders Rights Act as it was intended.

2. The Patent Act gives rights over the "making, constructing, and using"
of an "invention and selling it to others to be used". Infringement
occurs when someone makes, constructs, or uses a patented invention for
sale, without the permission of the patent owner.

Yet, Schmeiser never made, constructed, used, or sold the RR gene. He
grew a 1030 ac canola crop in 1998, of which some of the plants
inadvertently contained the RR gene. This is the crop for which he was
charged with patent infringement.

In order to use the patented RR gene, Schmeiser would have to have sprayed
Roundup on his 1030 ac crop - which he did not do. The RR gene confers
only one trait - tolerance to Roundup - a trait of relevance only when the
herbicide Roundup is actually sprayed. Quoting from an
earlier court decision, "The uncontradicted evidence of Mr. Schmeiser is
that he did not spray Roundup on his 1998 canola crop" (Para. 29, Court of
Appeal). Not only did Schmeiser make this statement, but he also
presented to the lower court receipts showing that he had purchased his
normal complement of herbicides in 1998. Monsanto presented no evidence
that he had purchased or applied Roundup to the 1998 crop.

Zakreski argued that simply growing RR-contaminated plants for sale as
grain - as done by Schmeiser - did not engage the utility of Patent O830",
because "the gene neither caused Mr. Schmeiser's plants to grow, nor to
grow differently or better. The gene added no value at time of sale."
Indeed, as shown by recent market trends, the presence of GM traits
actually reduces the value of Canadian canola. Zakreski also noted that
the rights granted by Parliament under the Patent Act do not pertain to
the simple presence or handling of an invention, but rather, to the
exploitation or utility of the invention. Thus, because Schmeiser did not
use the patented gene, he did not infringe on Monsanto's patent.

3. The uncontainability of GM traits, as acknowledged by Monsanto experts
in lower court proceedings, ensured off-site contamination of fields not
under contract to Monsanto. Aaron Mitchell, the Biotechnology manager for
Monsanto Canada, stated that "Monsanto always expected that fields of its
genetically modified canola would cross-pollinate with fields of regular canola"
(AR Vol. IV, p.600 (20-30)). Zakreski presented numerous examples to
substantiate Monsanto's expectation of uncontrollable contamination from
its RR canola.

In this particular case, a local RR-canola grower testified in lower court
that while hauling his grain to market past Schmeiser's fields in 1997, a
tarp came loose and "acted like a cyclone" releasing considerable seed
into Schmeiser's adjoining fields (AR Vol. VI. pp. 1132-5). Wind-blown
swaths from adjoining RR-canola fields landing on Schmeiser land were also
acknowledged by the lower court judge. Because Schmeiser saves his own
seed for replanting, the contamination carried into his next year's crop -
for which patent infringement was alleged. Thus, the initial sources of
contamination were an inadvertent but nonetheless unavoidable result of
normal farm practice.

The degree of contamination in the 1998 crop is in dispute, with Monsanto's
figures showing 95-98%, with a value for each of 27 in-field samples.
Yet, the same samples, analyzed at the University of Manitoba, showed
0-68% contamination, with some samples sufficiently degraded as to be
unmeasurable.

If the simple presence of RR plants in a field is enough to constitute
patent infringement, then most Western Canadian farmers would be patent
infringers - albeit innocent bystanders or passive recipients of unwanted
and unwelcome RR genes. Accordingly, Zakreski argued that to sustain
rights over their own property, farmers should be granted a waiver or
implied license to allow them to save and re-use their own seed - a lawful
and traditional use of agricultural property on the Schmeiser farm -
regardless of contamination which they could not control anyway.

He further argued that it was wrong to award the full value of Schmeiser's
crop to Monsanto simply because the gene was found on his farm, given that
he had not benefitted in any way from the contamination, and indeed, could
not have prevented it.

To illustrate the unworkability of awarding the full value of the crop to
the owner of a patented, contaminating gene, Zakreski presented the
hypothetical but entirely plausible example of a farmer whose canola was
inadvertently contaminated by two different genes, perhaps from two
different neighbors. Would the owner of each patented gene be entitled to
the full value of the crop? In other words, would the farmer have to pay
each patent owner 100% of the value of his crop?

When Zakreski resumed his seat, the atmosphere of the silent, dignified
chambers was positively electric. May his arguments be as powerful and
compelling to the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada as they were to
me.