I, and I'm sure, many other folks who read this post are curious as hell as to what PVP and OP are. And I'll guess that Santa Grape and Green Zebra are some type of pepper.

Please explain. I have a great friend who is a patent/trade/intellectual property atty. I'm sure he'd love to mull this one over.

OP is open pollinated.

Here is a link that might be useful: PVP

Oops! Forgot to mention that Green Zebra and Santa Grape are tomatoes. Tom Wagner is one of we tomato-heads heros.

It takes most people a few years to interpret Byron's posts. <G> They don't call him Lord Byron for nothing.

yes i am going to sue you. thats the whole point. but its for when money changes hands, not for friends sharing seeds between them. part of the deal with the property rights in usa is that you have to spend your resources to protect your property. if you dont defend your rights, you give them up. silence is tacit complicity.

in the chile pepper world, we go through this with the habanero red savina. its a protected strain.

But did you read the PVP act?

The most you can collect is $2,500, do you think you can hire a lawyer for that amount??

Byron,

My reading of the text in the link provided by John is apparently not the same as yours.

I think the $2,000 fine is only levied under the Federal Seed Act, Title V, whereby the violator may have to pay a fine to the federal govt. "not to exceed $2,000," or the Colorado Seed Act where the fine may not exceed $2,500 dollars.

I don't think PVPA is the same as FSA or CSA; and I think that under PVPA, the proprietor may seek "damages awarded by the court ... at least compensat(ing) the certificate owner for the infringements ... the attorney fees and up to triple damages where willful infringement is found."

So it seems under PVPA, it's up to the certificate holder's attorney to prove the extent of the willful damages and then seek triple that amount PLUS attorney fees, making a tort a potentially profitable claim for both the certificate holder and the attorney who will probably get (in addition to his or her fee) 40% of triple damages.

Bill

The whole thing sounds silly. What a shame that litigation has come to these games.

The whole thing makes me appreciate heirloom gardening all the more, and increases my disdain for Monsanto.

UJ

Take any bio chem, do a google search, then add "Health Issues" to the search..

One of my beefs, Monsanto bought out the worlds largest seed supplier, who the year before discontinued 2500 OP varieties. My guess is that Monsanto will discontinue most OP varieties.

Byron, it sounds like I will have to start perfecting my bagging techniques. I may end up an heirloom purist.

...and I will volunteer to help...

I Have been a Member of Seed Savers Exchange for several years ( and encourage those interested in preserving open pollinated varieties to join)and they publish lots of articles on the evils of Monsanto and the other mulinationals- including terminator technolgy--seeds which produce plants with sterile seeds so that you can't save seeds but must buy them every year. Monsanto suing a Canadian farmer for having their product in his fields even though it was a result of crossing from neighbors, etc. etc.

John

John

Here is a link that might be useful: SSE

>Monsanto suing a Canadian farmer for having their product in his fields even though it was a result of crossing from neighbors, etc. etc.

John47

FWIW

Percy is still fighting the Gov. over wind cross pollentation A few states in the US have said the wind cross pollenation is not sueable

A few states wrote this into the lawbooks, Monsanto, the last I knew, had law suits against over 500 farmers for the same reason,

Canada in essence stopped growing ovcer $500 million of Monsanto's Rape Seed aka canola after this suit.

Canadian farmers could not sell rape seed to over 50 countries that don't want GMO products and feel that are a health problem

In about 1/2 the countries in the world, they are allowed to know about GMO products on the label, In North America, Canada and Mexic this info is stiffeled. I gues a $100 million in PAC money makes a difference

FWIW

Thankfully my state is one that does not allow GMO products