“Gerritsen, who grows organic seed potatoes on his family’s Wood Prairie Farm in northern Maine, is president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (www.osgata.org), the national membership trade organization of the organic seed community, lead plaintiff in the OSGATA et al v. Monsanto lawsuit, which is currently in pre-trial procedural motions.
OSGATA is joined in the lawsuit by 82 other family farmers, seed businesses and agricultural organizations. The lawsuit asserts that Monsanto’s patents on transgenic (gene-spliced) seed fail to meet the “social utility” requirement of patent law and are therefore invalid.
The suit also seeks court protection for innocent family farmers from Monsanto patent infringement lawsuits in the perverse situation where their farms are contaminated by Monsanto genes through unwanted genetic trespass, such as when wind-borne transgenic pollen is blown from one farm to another.” Read the rest of this important article…