[License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] OS license for seeds (!)

[Lawrence Rosen]

> I am in the seed movement & you may have heard there are initiatives to
adapt an open source format for seeds to make them available to the public.

 

 

AFAIK, most of what seeds do was patented long ago in the Bible and can no
longer be restricted. Even the copyrightable aspects of what seeds do has
long ago been turned into poetry. As to whether strings of DNA can be
patented or copyrighted and then licensed in "an open source format" - this
is probably not the correct list to ask.

 

There is a U.S. plant patent [1]. Such patents can then be licensed to the
public like any other invention. You might want to develop some form of
non-assert for "free" uses that makes sense for your seed specialty. Again,
I doubt this is the best list to ask. You could approach some of the organic
certification organizations, GMO advocacy groups, or even the USDA, to see
if they are working on this.

 

/Larry

 

[1] http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/types/plant_patents.jsp 

 

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw & Einschlag ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

LinkedIn:  <http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD> http://lnkd.in/D9CWhD 

 

From: Patrick Masson [mailto:masson at opensource.org] 
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 11:09 AM
To: tracymlord at gmail.com; License Discuss
Cc: osi at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] OS license for
seeds (!)

 

Tracy,

Thank you for contacting the OSI. I have forwarded on your question to our
License Discuss list. Perhaps someone on that list has a suggestion for you.

Best of luck,
Patrick



On 08/05/2014 05:19 PM, tracymlord at gmail.com <mailto:tracymlord at gmail.com>
wrote:

Tracy M Lord (tracymlord at gmail.com <mailto:tracymlord at gmail.com> ) sent a
message using the contact form at 
http://opensource.org/contact. 

Can someone give me a thumbnail understanding of the legal status of the/any

"open source license"? I am in the seed movement & you may have heard there 
are initiatives to adapt an open source format for seeds to make them 
available to the public. Yet I am uncertain about the legal status of a 
"license" in this context. Thanks a million anyone who wants to attempt toe 
enlighten me on this. 

Report as inappropriate: 
http://opensource.org/mollom/report/mollom_content/1408052eb66545b1bf 

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