Cotton king
THE US firm Agracetus is at the centre of a controversy in its home country, too. In 1992, it was awarded a patent that gives it rights over all forms of genetically engineered cotton - even ones that are to be invented (New Scientist, Vol 141, No 1913). The consequences of the patent are being felt in universities and government research centres only now.
Agracetus' US patent requires that anybody genetically modifying cotton should get a licence from Agracetus. Besides setting what may be a bad precedent for agricultural crops, the patent is resented by plant biologists because it will dictate research on better cotton varieties.
According to Jerry Quisenberry of the US department of agriculture, "If you patent any of the genes, we can always find another gene(in its place). But, if you patent the product - transgenic cotton - there's no way around it. Now you've got a switch where you can turn on and off technology."
Some scientists even argue about whether the transgenic cotton developed by Agracetus deserved a patent at all. They say that to be patentable, an idea must be new. The product in question is owed significantly to another scientist, Norma Trolinder, who, while studying at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and funded by public money, managed to grow small pieces of cotton tissue into entire plants, a necessary and important step in developing any transgenic plant.
Agracetus says it acknowledged Trolinder's work in its patent application and the patent office still found the product innovative enough to approve it. The firm even says the wide range of its product is not unique and cites the case of Stanford University in California, which has a patent covering all genetic engineering, based on the work of two of its scientists Any company making use of these methods requires a Stanford licence.
Legal experts see a certain logic in wide-based patents. Says John Barton, specialist in law and technology at Stanford, "Suppose what I patent is a new chemical compound. I find one way to produce it. I still have the rights to the compound even if you make it another way.
But Rebecca Eisenberg, who teaches law at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, feels the scope of the Agracetus patent is too broad. She contends if somebody uses a method that is different from the one used by Agracetus to produce transgenic cotton, the plant should be consider6d outside the ambit of the patent.
Other companies carrying out research in cotton such as Mycogen in San Diego, are adopting a wait-and-see approach.