The Perverse Patent of the Yellow Bean

[nosmokes]

And this, next to the Texas rice company's filing a patent on basmati rice, the worst case of biopiracy and a *prime* example of why being able to patent food sources is just plain madness in the first place.
--###--



MEXICO-US: The Perverse Patent of the Yellow Bean

By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, May 21 (Tierramérica) - Patenting an invention in the United States and benefiting from the patent rights is, in theory, an incentive for innovation and scientific discovery. But in practice it can spur theft, as occurred with a variety of Mexican bean.

After eight years of red tape and legal efforts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in late April revoked the patent for a type of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) that it had granted to U.S. citizen Larry Proctor, whose claims to have invented the bean were backed by dubious empirical evidence.

Although these beans may differ in size and colouring, they are all of a single species, Phaseolus vulgaris L.

It was a case of biopiracy that serves as an example of how the U.S. patent system "can end up having perverse effects," Jorge Mario Martínez, with the Mexican office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told Tierramérica.

It cost more than one million dollars in lawyers’ fees to get the patent overturned. Also involved in the fight against the patent were social activists, the Mexican government and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), based in the Colombian city of Cali.

~snip~
.
.
.
complete article here