TITLE: European Patent Office forced to reconsider DuPont patent on maize - Broad alliance challenges biopiracy AUTHOR: Greenpeace PUBLICATION: Press Release DATE: 12 February 2003 URL: http://www.greenpeace.org/press/release?item_id=136484&camp aign_id= Greenpeace | 12 February 2003 EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE FORCED TO RECONSIDER DUPONT PATENT ON MAIZE BROAD ALLIANCE CHALLENGES BIOPIRACY While the European Patent Office (EPO) was reconsidering a controversial patent on maize currently held by a U.S. corporation DuPont, protestors from a broad alliance of groups joined in front of the EPO building to protest against biopiracy and patents on plants and seeds. The EPO is now obliged to consider if the DuPont patent (EP 744888) issued in August 2000 ought to be upheld in light of objections submitted by concerned parties, including the Mexican government, church groups and Greenpeace. In a symbolic action, four figures on stilts, dressed as managers of DuPont, Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta, the world's largest agro-multinational, were tacking patent clips on plants and seeds around a three-meter globe. Other 70 activists attempted to protect the earth's agricultural diversity from the figures on stilts, demanding "Stop Biopiracy" in seven languages. The EPO patent (EP 744888) currently covers naturally and traditionally cultivated maize with higher oil content. Maize with higher oil content is already cultivated in many Latin American countries where the plant originated. The patent holder DuPont claims patent rights on all products for which this maize in used, such as cooking oil and animal feed. "This is daylight robbery and the EPO is helping in the theft," said Ulrike Brendel, Greenpeace expert on patents. "Obviously this maize is not a DuPont invention but that is what they have a nerve to claim in order to rob the people in Latin America who have cultivated and planted maize seeds for thousands of years. We ask the EPO to halt this patent right away and recognise that the current practice of granting them clearly goes too far." DuPont has applied for at least 250 patents on seeds in Europe alone, and some 40 have been granted. In July, the Opposition Division of the EPO admitted that maize is not, in fact, an invention; but so far the patent has not been cancelled. Up till now the EPO has granted more than 300 patents on plants and seeds. At present, the EPO routinely refers to the controversial EU Directive 98/44/CE on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. The practice is considered questionable as the new EU patent directive contradicts the legal foundation of the EPO, which is the European Patent Convention that forbids the patenting of plant varieties and animal species. As 11 countries now belonging to the EPO are not members of the European Union, many experts believe the EPO cannot apply the EU directive. Furthermore, the majority of EU member states is still struggling with the directive and has not yet implemented it. For further information contact: Ulrike Brendel, Greenpeace, Mob: +49-171-8780844 or Christoph Then, Greenpeace, Mob: +49-171-8780832