| Prophetic but misleading: Fictitious examples in patents Many patents in the field of life sciences contain fictitious examples, known as "prophetic", of how the invention can be realised. Such imaginary examples enable applicants to increase the scope of their patents. This is a common practice that is now taking on significant proportions. The rapid development and strong competitiveness of this sector encourages its players to file numerous patent applications as soon as possible. This is the case even if, when the patent application is filed, the invention is not sufficiently supported by real examples. This is why applicants resort to "prophetic" examples. In the US, since the early 1980s, the USPTO (the US Patent and Trademark Office) has accepted such examples if they are not misleading and have a reasonable scientific basis. The USPTO also requires that they be distinguished from actual examples in the text of the patent. The EPO (European Patent Office) also allows prophetic examples, provided they are reproducible. But a 2021 survey shows that 75% of European patent applicants do not distinguish prophetic examples from real ones in their patent applications. [GMW: This article is very important, coming at a time when GMO developers and their allies are trying to get patented new GMOs deregulated in the EU, potentially leading to an influx of patented seeds, on the basis of unfulfilled promises of future products.] Inf'OGM "Laying claim to nature’s work": Plant patents sow fear among small growers For nearly 40 years, Frank Morton has been breeding plants. Particularly drawn to lettuce, he began breeding specialty salad greens, once a rarity in the produce market. Using an organic farm system, Morton developed novel lettuce varieties. Though he loves the work, being a small-scale plant breeder doesn’t come without challenges. Over the years, Morton has watched large corporations take over the seed industry, using utility patents to claim seeds as an invention. A utility patent protects an invention from being used, replicated or sold without permission. This has left smaller-scale breeders in limbo, often unsure of what they can and can’t use when developing new plant varieties. Morton has experienced first-hand the effects of such patents. In 2021, he shared one of his lettuce varieties, the frilly-leaved “Funny Cut Mix”, with a trusted customer who also breeds plants. The customer planned to include “Funny Cut Mix” in their lettuce trials, which plant breeders use to evaluate how well a variety will perform. A few months later, the customer informed Morton that his “Funny Cut Mix” would be excluded from further trials because it looked like a patented lettuce type called Salanova, owned by the Dutch company Rijk Zwaan. Though he didn’t use any patented material to develop “Funny Cut Mix”, Morton’s variety was excluded simply because its appearance might infringe on that patent. Morton doesn’t blame his customer. Instead, he points to the restrictive system of utility patents and the fear it instills in small-scale seed breeders. [GMW: This is a vitally important article that must be read by anyone concerned with the future of our food and farming. GMOs are an easy way to patent plant varieties, though bad practice at patent offices means that non-GMO varieties are also increasingly patented.] The Guardian EU Parliament's environment committee supports relaxing rules on GM plants Lawmakers on the European Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday backed a proposal to relax rules on genetically modified plants produced using so-called new genomic techniques, prompting strong criticism from environmental groups. The Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted its position on a European Commission proposal to relax the rules with 47 votes to 31 and four abstentions. “Decades of progress in the EU on farmers’ rights, and protecting people’s health and the environment, should not be scrapped for the sake of biotech industry profits,” Greenpeace campaigner Eva Corral said. “EU law does not prohibit research and development. It aims to ensure that what is developed does not breach EU citizens’ rights to health and environmental protection.” Washington Post [archived version of this article is here] EU Parliament gives first green light to new rules for gene-edited plants With 47 votes in favour to 31 against and 4 abstentions, a right-leaning majority agreed to set two categories of NGT (new genomic techniques, new GMO] plants: gene-edited plants that are “indistinguishable” from those obtained through conventional breeding (NGT 1) – which would be exempted from the requirements of the GMO legislation – and those with more “complex modifications” (NGT 2) – which would follow stricter rules. In line with the Commission’s proposal, presented in July, MEPs agreed that NGT seeds must be labelled accordingly but that there would be no mandatory labelling at consumer level for the NGT 1 products. Lawmakers also voted to keep all NGTs out of organic production and to prevent EU countries from banning them in their territory. While the EU executive decided to leave the question of patents unanswered, MEPs voted to introduce a full ban on patents for NGTs “to avoid legal uncertainties, increased costs and new dependencies for farmers and breeders”. However, the EU organics association IFOAM said in a press release that addressing the issue of patents “with an amendment and a report” was “wishful thinking”. Euractiv NGOs initiate legal challenge against EU glyphosate re-approval A consortium of six NGOs - PAN Europe, ClientEarth (EU), Générations Futures (France), GLOBAL 2000 (Austria), PAN Germany, and PAN Netherlands - has officially launched a legal challenge against the European Commission’s recent decision to re-approve glyphosate. After conducting a detailed examination of the glyphosate re-approval process and identifying several critical shortcomings, the NGOs submitted a Request for Internal review to the Commission, marking the first step in this legal battle. The European Commission re-approved glyphosate for 10 years despite an impressive body of scientific evidence indicating its toxicity to human health and the environment. Angeliki Lyssimachou, Head of Science and Policy at PAN Europe said: "We are dismayed by the incredible number of breaches in EU law. Scientific evidence on the important toxicity of glyphosate on health and the environment was not correctly communicated to the Commission by EFSA and ECHA. Farmers are the first victims of this. The Commission reapproved glyphosate despite the available information on its toxicity and the numerous data gaps. This should have led to a ban." PAN Europe The story of the decade: latest on SARS-CoV-2 origins New documents strengthen — perhaps conclusively — the lab-leak hypothesis of COVID-19’s origins, writes investigative journalist Nicholas Wade. The documents may explain why no one has been able to find the SARS-CoV-2 virus infesting a colony of bats, from which it might have jumped to people. The reason would be that the virus has never existed in the natural world. The documents, obtained by US Right to Know, provide a recipe for assembling SARS-type viruses from six synthetic pieces of DNA designed to be a consensus sequence — the genetically most infectious form — of viruses related to SARS1, the bat virus that caused the minor epidemic of 2002. The probative weight of the recipe is that prior independent evidence already pointed to SARS-CoV-2 having just such a six-section structure. The documents unearthed by US Right to Know, and analysed by its reporter Emily Kopp, include drafts and planning materials for the already-known DEFUSE proposal, an application to DARPA, a Pentagon research agency, for a $14 million grant to enhance SARS-like bat viruses. The new recipe is in striking accord with a theoretical paper published in 2022 that predicted the SARS-CoV-2 virus had been generated in exactly this way. Three researchers — Valentin Bruttel, Alex Washburne, and Antonius VanDongen — noted that the virus could be cut into six sections if treated with a pair of agents known as restriction enzymes and so had probably been synthesised and assembled in this way. Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University who had called the 2022 paper “noteworthy... but not decisive”, now says that the evidence in the new documents “elevates the evidence provided by the genome sequence from the level of noteworthy to the level of a smoking gun”. 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