Comments on: The seeds of an antitrust disaster http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/ Academic commentary on law, business, economics and more Sat, 02 Jun 2012 12:17:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Monsanto Anti-trust Case | Dagorret http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8040 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:39:26 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8040 [...] his post The Seeds of an Antitrust Disaster , Geoffrey Manne makes a great point related to intellectual property [...]

]]> By: TRUTH ON THE MARKET http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8039 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:18:29 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8039 [...] couple weeks ago, Geoff wrote concerning the DOJ’s misguided antitrust interest in Monsanto. With that in mind, I was very interested to see today’s announcement that [...]

]]> By: Michael Sykuta http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8038 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:57:56 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8038 Brian & Geoff, DuPont has a non-GM soybean that was bred to be resistant to DuPont’s Synchronicity(R) herbicide. They tried using contract programs to promote adoption of the seed throughout the late 90s and early 00′s (I published a paper in 2003 analyzing their contract practices).

Despite international demand for non-GMO soybeans and DuPont’s contract programs offering premiums to farmers for producing and segregating their non-GM soybeans, DuPont couldn’t effectively compete with the economics of Roundup-Ready(R) soybeans. The current litigation seems really to just be a protracted case of sour grapes … or sour soybeans.

]]> By: Lacie http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8037 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:52:24 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8037 Ewan thank you for your education on patenting pigs, pig genes. I appreciate your effort but I do find it disturbing, and I am not the only person to believe that it is. Good luck trying to convince other people. In regards to me watching “Fox News”, I don’t watch Fox News and don’t believe them as much as I don’t believe in patenting pig genes. Thank you

]]> By: Geoffrey Manne http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8036 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:40:37 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8036 Brian: It’s a good point with respect to the broad question of the role of IP. The reason folks are targeting Monsanto is twofold: One, the targeting is being driven by . . . Pioneer/DuPont in the first place, so naturally the focus is not on DuPont. Second, the claim is that Monsanto has dominance in the relevant market. As an antitrust matter, this creates special problems for Monsanto that wouldn’t exist for other companies. Now, I think there is actually some debate over the degree of dominance and the proper market definition, but these are the claims, anyway, and making that claim gives rise to a special set of complaints.

]]> By: Brian http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8035 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:15:55 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8035 What amazes me about this is that no one seems upset at Pioneer/Dupont for their patents on plants and genes. Monsanto is not the only player in this and it seems strange to me that they are at fault for a system that all the seed companies willingly have signed up for and pay to be a part of. Yes, the agreements with Monsanto are restrictive, but if you want out, all you have to do is not sell transgenic varieties.

]]> By: Ewan R http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8034 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:07:27 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8034 In more IP news on Monsanto – recently they released a letter to industrial stakeholders on the upcoming expiration of the RR soybean patent (the first commercially succesful GMO patent in crops to expire, ushering in a new era potentially showing the worth of patenting rather than shrouding discoveries in secrecy)

http://accordingtomonsanto.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/stakeholder-letter00011.pdf

I’m sure conspiracy theorists can probably find something evil hidden between the lines in this, but to me it looks like the intention is not to fight things and not to force users of 2nd and 3rd generation products to exclude RR1 soybeans (which would undoubtedly be possible through contracts, and would undoubtedly be anti-competitive)

]]> By: Geoffrey Manne http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8033 Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:27:21 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8033 I don’t think Monsanto or anyone else is forcing farmers to do anything. My sense is that they have an incredibly effective product, and almost everyone wants it. Farmers can (and organic farmers do) certainty continue to grow soybeans without gm traits and without using Roundup.

The really interesting question is what Monsanto can and should do to commercialize its IP investment. I’m of the mind that strong IP rights and effective licenses actually help in ensuring first that investments in technology development are made and second that they are efficiently distributed. This seems exactly like what’s going on here. Of course there are always people who’d like to pay less for the things they buy. But absent a compelling story of anticompetitive conduct (which I’ve definitely not seen yet), this is just a base effort on the part of purchasers to get a better deal. Understandable, but lamentable.

]]> By: John B http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8032 Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:17:44 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8032 I applaud farmers, but it’s hard to applaud a company’s effort that uses technological advances that forces farmers to use products like Roundup, gm seeds etc if they don’t want to. Only time will tell if these products can potentially harm our food supply, soil, animals, humans.

]]> By: Ewan R http://truthonthemarket.com/2009/12/14/the-seeds-of-an-antitrust-disaster/#comment-8031 Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:03:55 +0000 http://www.truthonthemarket.com/?p=3507#comment-8031 Lacie – the ‘patent on pigs’ is a patent on a method to breed pigs utilizing a molecular marker which is linked to better pigginess (or whatever the technical term for yield in pigs is…) – that is a specific genetic sequence which you’ll generally find in awesome pigs, and generally won’t find in non-awesome pigs – therefore to make even more awesome pigs you breed those which have the marker (which you test for in advance of making piggy introductions, or artificial insemination or whatever it is pig breeders do) and not those that do not.

The finding of this marker, the proving it works, and the initial utilization of the marker are a laborious and expensive process, therefore, to protect their investment, Monsanto patented this – giving them (or whoever subsequently owns the patent) sole rights to its use for a given period of time, to essentially recoup costs and make a profit on the discovery – essentially how all patents are designed – in return for this sole right of use Monsanto fully discloses the invention and its useage such that when the patent expires anybody ‘skilled in the art’ (ie pig breeders, or molecular biologists, or a combination thereof) is free to utilize the technology.

The alternatives to this are

a) Never researching anything because in doing so you take all the risk and anyone who wants can then utilize the technology once it is public

b) Researching and keeping it secret, hoping that nobody else figures it out.

a) results in total scientific stagnation, particularly in high investment products (such as GM crops, which cost ~$100M to commercialize from conception)

b) results in either multiple people wasting time on the same discovery, or absolute dominance of a single invention forever (and may still lead to very little in the way of profit should a competitor figure out what you did shortly after a commercial release)

I don’t understand what is disturbing about this. Although if you base your entire judgement on food inc, and videos you found on youtube (although I believe monsanto has some out there too – so it is vaguely possible to get a somewhat balanced view) then yes, the picture painted will be disturbing, in the same way that if earlier this decade your entire judgement on whether or not Iraq had WMDs was based on what fox news told you – you’d probably say yes.

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