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Authored by tiger99 on May 10, 2019 0:59:16 GMT
Just watching the news on TV. Pepsico sued the farmers for growing the potatoes used in their products. It sees that this made them very unpopular, so Pepsico was more or less humiliated into dropping the case. Now the farmers are suing Pepsico, presumably for defamation.
There was insufficient detail to determine whether this was due to patents, but I can't see how else Pepsico could have thought that they had a case. A big US based multinational bully-boy suing people with minimal income is not likely to go down well in court in India, whose legal system was originally derived from English law. It also would present a perfect opportunity for Pepsico's main competitor to gain a lot of sales in India. Corporate stupidity seems to be very common. But can you, or should you be able to patent, or even copyright a vegetable? Unless they are GM, there is plenty of prior art, belonging to God, which is one of the reasons why the human genome can't be patented in many countries, including the UK. I can't see that potatoes should be any different.
Maybe someone will be able to find some better info on this case, and post excerpts some of it within the "fair use" rules, or give us a link? Maybe even write an article?
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