Green Options » patents

The Ethics of Selling Crop Seed: Part 1

Steve Savage — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:18:34 +0000

There is a lot of confusion and disinformation circulating today about seeds and the ethics of their commercial sale. Actually a healthy, commercial seed industry is critical for agricultural sustainability. Because seeds are such a fundamental component of the sustainability of our food supply, this area deserves careful thought and accurate information even if you are never going to farm or even garden. I’ll try to address some of the modern “myths” about this. I’ll talk about “farmer-saved seed,” and “hybrid seed.” In a later post I’ll talk about “GMO seed,” and the mythical “Terminator Technology.” But first a little history.

Seed-bearing plants start showing up in the fossil record ~350 million years ago, first as gymnosperms like cycads, conifers… and eventually, flowering plants (angiosperms) like most of the living plants today. Other than pine nuts and sea weed, I can’t think of any crops that are not angiosperms (Contest! - 5 virtual sustainability points to someone who can come up with another non-angiosperm crop plant)

Jarrod Diamond’s wonderful book, “Guns, Germs and Steel” talks about how the initially accidental and later intentional collection and planting of seeds is what made human civilization possible - the move beyond the hunter/gatherer state that happened about 10,000 years ago in the “fertile crescent.”

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China Forgets “China-Only Wind Turbines” Policy, but Why?

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:18:02 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about China’s new policy to focus on buying (almost entirely) “China-grown” wind turbines and wind turbine technologies with Chinese patents. That policy wasn’t a big hit internationally and China is back-tracking.

However, is it changing its stance out of international moral pressure or a major financial incentive (recent deal) in the US? And who is to benefit the most from this shift?

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Are Large, For-Profit Corporations Intrinsically Less Ethical?

Steve Savage — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:43:35 +0000

In the comment streams on my blog posts there is a recurrent theme from one segment of the respondents - they have a deep distrust in the large companies that are involved in modern agricultural technology. They don’t believe these companies will behave ethically because they are for profit entities “only answerable to their shareholders.”

I’d like to speak directly to this as a long-time Ag industry insider whose experience does not support these suspicions. I know that some will dismiss this perspective assuming I am biased, but one has to balance potential for bias with actually having first-hand experience from which to speak. Over the last 32 years I’ve work for or with most of the companies, large and small, that provide agricultural technologies. Fourteen of those years have been as an independent consultant so I get to know what is going on inside of many companies in a given year. I have still only had direct knowledge of a subset of what happens, but in all of that exposure I’ve never witnessed an unethical decision or action - not even the consideration of one. I’ve seen certain decisions that were short-sighted. I’ve sometimes seen decision-making processes that are more driven by fear than by opportunity. I’ve seen missed opportunities because vision was lacking. I’ve occasionally seen failures to take advantage of synergies that could have been realized between divisions of large organizations. I’ve seen problems, but I believe that some level of dysfunction is inevitable in any organization involving people. Still, unethical behavior isn’t something I’ve seen so I disagree that it is automatically likely just because of the characteristics of the company.

On balance I’ve also seen these organizations, large and small, frequently make important contributions to society in terms of the productivity and safety of our food supply. I’ve seen these companies continue to do that in an environment of constant activist attack and very limited public understanding because so few people farm.

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International Wind Power Business Acquisition — Confidence in the US

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:45:19 +0000

A major move in the wind power industry this week shows international confidence in wind power in the US. A multi-million dollar acquisition by a British investment firm demonstrates that large financial players are seeing the US as a good place to invest in wind power.

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#1: Clean Energy Patents Hit Record High in the US

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:14:00 +0000

The economy is down, but here is another sign that green technology may be the way out of our economic dilemma. US clean energy patents hit a record high last quarter.

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Google’s Floating Water and Wind Energy Retrofitted Data Center

Sam Aola Ooko — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:41:06 +0000

This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.

What does that mean? According to documents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office August 28, the Google water-powered data center will be - a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.

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Free Patent Details Revealed By Bosch, Du Pont and Xerox

Chris Milton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:57:19 +0000

Bosch, Du Pont and Xerox have joined the Eco Patent Commons, an international effort to speed up the progress of sustainable development.

Their paticipation brings the number of free patents available for use by anyone in the world to 69, more than doubling the original number.

Hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) the Commons was established in January this year by IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in response to a growing dilemma among large businesses.

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Green Patents That are Free to All: Eco-Patent Commons

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:43:44 +0000

Some ideas for greening the planet are so-spot on yet so ground-breaking, they make you say, “Of course! Why didn’t anybody think of that sooner?”

That pretty much sums up my reaction upon discovering Eco-Patent Commons.

Launched at the beginning of 2008, Eco-Patent Commons makes available royalty-free, patented technologies for reducing pollution and waste, curbing greenhouse gases and meeting demand for clean, renewable energy. It’s the green-invention equivalent of Wikipedia.

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