Posted September 18, 2020
When Brian Campbell and Crystine Goldberg of Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, Washington, opened a letter from German multinational chemical company BASF, they were caught off guard. The letter asserted the company’s patent rights associated with a long list of vegetable types and said that “unlicensed or unauthorized use” of BASF technology and/or germplasm is a violation of the company’s intellectual property rights. The descriptions ranged from tomatoes “having pink fruits” to the more broad “drought tolerant plants” and “onions with high storage ability.” Read more.