The European Patent Office (EPO) has revoked a patent held by Monsanto on conventionally bred melons with a resistance to plant viruses. The patent was revoked for technical reasons according to the EU, after the resistance was detected in Indian melons.

On Thursday, campaign group No Patents on Seeds, which called for the patent to be revoked, said it had been granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) even though European patent law does not allow patents on conventionally bred plant varieties and genetic material. The Indian government supported the opposition by a sending letter requesting the patent be revoked.

Christoph Then, a spokesperson for No Patents on Seeds, said, “The patent was based on essentially biological processes for breeding. This was a clear violation of European patent law. It is a huge success that the patent has been revoked. Nevertheless, the general problem cannot be resolved simply by filing oppositions at the EPO. Politicians need to make sure that laws are applied properly and prohibitions are no longer ignored.”

Patenting seeds - especially conventionally bred varieties - is a hugely controversial issue within the EU at the moment.

Commenting ahead of a vote in the European Parliament in December, Pekka Pesonen, Secretary-General of EU farmers’ organisation Copa-Cogeca said, “Copa and Cogeca do not believe that using patents in the EU agriculture breeding sector is the right instrument to use vis-à-vis intellectual property rights. Indeed, all genes known by nature and which nature creates cannot be considered as inventions. Patents in fact hinder the work of farmers and breeders who have had free access to the gene pools of previous generations under the EU plant variety rights convention (UPOV).”

Warning of the possible outcomes of allowing such patents, Pesonen continued, “Patenting seeds will cause fewer varieties to be on the market and create extra costs. It threatens biodiversity by limiting the number of breeders and breeding programmes. It also hinders innovation as a lot of money is wasted by companies on high legal fees associated with patents and less [is spent] on research and development. Many Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are likely to be forced out of business, leading to further consolidation and/or reduced innovation in plant breeding and creating stronger dependency on the bigger seed companies”