The European Patent Office (EPO) has opened a Pandora’s box by deciding to grant patent rights to seeds developed through conventional breeding processes. They have begun to grant both product and process patents for these, and as an interim ruling, EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) has decided to grant a general patent on broccoli.

The development is of special concern to India because farm exports from the country, as also from other developing countries, to Europe would be at stake, as such a measure may lead to patenting of a large number of crops. Trade disputes may, therefore, become inevitable, according to experts.

The immediate reaction to the EPO’s plan to grant general patent rights to conventional crops has been the collective protest by farmers from India, Europe and Latin America, who have gathered in Munich, where the EPO is based. The Indian farmers are represented by the Bharat Krishak Samaj.

In a telephonic conversation from Munich, the executive chairman of the Bharat Krishak Samaj, Krishan Bir Chaudhary, said, “We will fight for our sovereign rights over seeds and farm animals. We cannot afford to lose our rights to MNCs. We know the strategy of MNCs like Monsanto, which sued Canadian farmer Percy Schmieser for ownership of his conventional canola seeds, after having his field contaminated by pollen from the nearby genetically modified (GM) canola fields.”

The EPO’s decision to accord such patent rights flows from the ruling of the EBA, which is also to decide on the validity of a patent on broccoli (EP 1069819 B1) this year. Since 1980, the EPO has granted patent rights to over 151 GM crops from the 285 applications it received. It has now on its agenda the grant of patent rights to conventionally bred seeds and animals.

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