The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the U.S. biotech giant Monsanto on Friday in the firm’s lop-sided patent fight against Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser.
In what is thought to be the first ruling of its kind anywhere in the world, the court ruled 5-4 that since Monsanto holds a patent on a gene in its Roundup Ready canola plants, it can control the use of the plant.
The decision has fundamental implications for the biotech industry, farmers, health care and other areas where genetic engineering is used.
Monsanto that alleged Schmeiser deliberately planted Roundup Ready on his land in 1997, infringing Monsanto’s patent on a gene in the plant.
Lower courts rejected Schmeiser’s claim that the canola landed on his fields by accident, but didn’t deal with the deeper issue of whether Monsanto can control use of a plant because it has patented a gene in the plant.
The high court ruled that Monsanto has a legal claim to such control.
The court ruled earlier in the case of the Harvard mouse, that higher life forms cannot be patented and Schmeiser based his case on a claim that a plant, too, is a higher life form, and exempt from patent.
The court agreed that the plant is a higher life form and cannot be patented, but said the patent does apply to the gene.
Steven Garland, vice-president of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, said the main question was what kind of rights Monsanto enjoyed as a result of its patent on one gene in Roundup Ready canola.
Janet Lambert, president of BioteCanada, said the G-8 has taken a position that multicellular entities are patentable. She said a ruling against Monsanto would have been a setback for Canadian biotechnology research.
© The Canadian Press 2004