alt Hacker News>locked in a legal battle with a company that claims exclusive rights over the variety of white nectarine he grows.
>[...] Fruit patents are becoming more common
this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food.
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Plant patents incentivize the creation of disease resistant, tasty, and hardy varieties. If you remove the patents, you remove the incentive for private capital.
Capital to create new plants has to come from somewhere: public tax funding, grower-funded pools, or patent licensing. We do a mix of all three.
This isnt even a patent case. Its a contracts case. The article says these trees arent under patent, the farmer signed a contract saying he would only sell to one supplier and now wants to sell to others.
> this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food.
Wait until you hear about Monsanto/Bayer - a quick Google of "monsanto food patents" brings up the highlights.
...and none does. You can grow and sell any peach you want; the tree has no sense of the childish tantrums of the state over its bounty.
This is a strong and obvious indications that the laws and statues as presented by the state are not in fact the actual underlying modes under which society operates.
This is so simplistic.
They made a new varietal. Nobody is saying he can't plant any of the standard heirloom Nectarines. The patent will expire in a while, and then anyone can do it.
Honestly, how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? This is how it has worked for half a century and mild gripes aside, the quality of the produce in stores is WAY WAY BETTER than it was before (seriously, what is the last time you ate a Red Delicious apple?)
Have like... some awareness of the large functioning important system you are mindlessly breaking with throwaway comments.
If you spent decades doing selective breeding to obtain a more desirable product, you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product from you and made money off of your hard work.
If the products are being bred from tax funded programs, then yes, anybody should have access to the new breeds, but if it's privately funded, then why should it be available for everyone? Without the protection, there isn't much incentive to invest time into developing better foods.