International Specialty Supply
Supplying Sprout Companies Throughout the World
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International Specialty Supply Supplying Sprout Companies Throughout the World
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820 East 20th Street Cookeville, TN 38501 USA 931 526 1106
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The Battle Over Broccoli Former
President George Bush isn't the only one who finds broccoli a pain. Ask
Greg Lynn April/May
2002 Law
& Politics by
Peter Floss All
Greg Lynn of Harmony Farms in Auburn ever wanted was to grow and sell broccoli
sprouts. Instead, he's spent the past two years tangled in an
intellectual-property lawsuit that questions who owns broccoli seeds and how
they may be harvested. "I
sell sprouts; I don't sell cancer cures," says Lynn. Yet that is
precisely what Brassica Protection Products Claims Lynn's farm is doing.
In October 2000, the company filed suit against a seed dealer and five farms,
including Lynn's, for infringing their patent. It started in 1997, when
Johns Hopkins University researchers Paul Talalay and Jed Fahey discovered that
broccoli sprouts, at a specific point early in their development, often contain
high levels of sulforaphane glucosinolate (SGS), an antioxidant that has been
found to retard the growth of tumors in lab rats and is believed to be a
cancer-fighting agent. Based on their discovery, they patented a method of
cultivating a food product rich in SGS, from certain cruciferous sprouts,
eventually obtaining three different method patents. Sole marketing rights
to the resultant food products were given to Brassica Protection Products, whose
chief executive officer, Antony Talalay, is Paul's son. Brassica
Protection Products defends its patent vigorously, charging a commission to
farmers who grow high-SGS sprouts. The suits filed in October were
consolidated into a single lawsuit in the company's home state of Maryland,
where a district court issued a summary judgment in favor of Lynn and the
defendants. Brassica Protection Products has filed an appeal. Antony
Talalay says, "We believe that they're infringing the patent. I think
the bottom line on this is that Harmony Farms was offered a license and
declined.... One can look at that behavior and say that they just don't
want to pay the fees." Lynn
says he doesn't guarantee high levels of SGS in his sprouts, but simply uses the
same seed varieties that are described in the patent - common seeds that have
long been used by farmers. He says, "The reality is that seeds that
are inherently high in this ingredient will produce sprouts that are also high
in this ingredient." He adds that he's fighting the lawsuit on
principle and won't come close to recouping his legal costs through broccoli
sprout sales. "Were
quite confident that it will be overturned on appeal,” Talalay says.
"We'll let the courts decide." While
Talalay would not say how much the licensing fees are, Lynn estimates that
licensed farmers have to sell their sprouts for twice as much as he does to turn a
profit. "You
can't patent nature," says Lynn. "Just because you find
something that people didn't already know was there doesn't mean it's
patentable." |