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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Broccoli Sprouts Can't Be Patented, Judge Says "We
are basically elated at the results," said Larry Ravitz, owner of Banner
Mountain Sprouts, which employs eight and sells sprouts to the Raley's Inc.
supermarket chain and Northern California wholesalers. "The judge granted
everything that we asked for." The
ruling addresses a dispute that began last October when Johns Hopkins University
and Brassica Protection Products, a Maryland company that claimed rights to
commercialize two patents owned by the university, sued Banner Mountain Sprouts
and four other companies that sell broccoli sprouts. The
university and Brassica claimed the patents gave them and their distributors,
who pay the company royalties, the exclusive rights to sprout broccoli seed and
sell it as food. The
claims incensed many sprout growers, who believe nobody should have the right to
patent a process as natural as growing sprouts from seed. "Do
we patent the chicken because it lays an egg?" Ravitz asked rhetorically. The
suit against Banner Mountain Sprouts was combined with the other four and
transferred to the Maryland court. Last week U. S. District judge William
Nickerson decided the evidence against the five sprout growers wasn't strong
enough for a jury trial and granted a summary judgment in their favor. Brassica
said it will appeal the decision, adding, "We are confident of the validity
of the Johns Hopkins patents." In
September 1997, Johns Hopkins researchers published studies that showed the
sprouts of some kinds of cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli and
cauliflower, have high levels of cancer-fighting compounds. Later they filed for
patents, describing the process of growing and harvesting sprouts "to form
a food product." In
June 1999, Brassica sued in Delaware, claiming patent infringement by a business
called Sproutman Inc. Sproutman
claimed that people had known for years that broccoli seeds could be sprouted
and eaten, and asked the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine the
patent. The office rejected most of the claims, but then reaffirmed them after
Brassica asked for yet another review. Sproutman
settled out of court, and last year Brassica filed five more suits. In
his decision on those five recent suits, Judge Nickerson said that U. S. patent
law prevents the granting of patents that describe a "prior art,"
meaning a practice that's already been described. "Plaintiffs
also do not claim that their patents involve doing anything to alter or modify
the natural seeds," Nickerson's decision said. 'They are simply germinated,
harvested and eaten." Attorneys
for the university and Brassica argued that they created a new industry because
no one was producing or selling broccoli sprouts before. But Ravitz said he has
worked with and sold broccoli sprouts for 25 years. The
judge said it's irrelevant whether the industry already existed. "Merely
describing unexpected beneficial results of a known process" he ruled,
"does not entitle plaintiffs to patent that process." |