Syngenta Retreats on Bid to Patent Global Plant Resources
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF)
Faced with organized opposition to an international patent application aimed at gaining proprietary rights over the
genetic process governing flower production in plants the Swiss-based seed and agrochemical transnational Syngenta has
agreed to let its patent application lapse. In separate communications to the IUF and to the ETC Group, the civil
society organization with which the IUF worked to fight this global power grab, Syngenta has stated that it will not
pursue its patent claims at the US Patent and Trademark office and the European Patent Office. The announcement followed
earlier ambiguous statements that it would abandon the patent in developing countries, leaving open the possibility that
it would continue pushing the application in other critical markets.
In its letter to the IUF, Syngenta states that "It is our belief that intellectual property rights are indispensable for
investment in innovation, as they provide transparency and enable companies to take considerable research and
development risks with a return on their investment. The seeds sector in particular shows how the patent system
encourages companies to share and license technology and inventions that might otherwise be kept private and exclusive."
The patent process, however, is anything but transparent, and Syngenta's international patent application
PCT/EPO2/06968, Publication Number WO03/00094, which lays claim to dozens of major food crops (including varieties as
yet undiscovered!), exemplifies a global corporate strategy. The IUF will therefore be working, together with other
groups, to ensure that Syngenta and the other biotechnology and seed/agrochemical corporations go public with their
patent applications in this domain. Sustained pressure on the companies will be needed to compel them to renounce their
drive to acquire "ownership" of the world's food resources through the patent process.
The IUF has yet to receive a reply to our written request to Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nations' Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO), calling on the organization to exercise its mandate to defend global food security
and take action to block the Syngenta patent application.