Request to revoke a patent on peppers in Europe

A European coalition of agricultural organisations, breeders and NGO's from 27 countries claim to have submitted an appeal to the European Patent Office on the 3rd February 2014 in Munich against a patent granted to Syngenta. The patent ''allows the Basel based agrochemical company to claim ownership of a resistance to insects that was in fact copied from a wild pepper,'' claims the Farmers' Seed Network in a communiqué published on their website.

The patent was granted to Syngenta in May 2013 and ''guarantees the Basel based firm exclusive rights to all peppers that are resistant to whitefly. This patent law is applied in many European countries and prevents other farmers from freely using these plants on their farms. This specific resistance to whitefly was achieved by combining a wild Jamaican pepper with a commercial pepper. It is not in any way an invention, but a discovery.''

In response to the situation a spokesperson for Syngenta, Pascal Marbois, wanted to specify that ''the innovation in question is the result of years of research. The process which began in 1999 allowed us to identify the gene responsible for natural resistance to whitefly as well as the technology needed to do so. Filing a patent is a way to share a major discovery with the international community, who can then use this scientific knowledge. It is also a way to pay for the many years of hard work.''

''An invention must fulfil three essential criteria: be new, industrially applicable and inventive. The decision of the European Patent Office confirms that all of these criteria are respected'', underlines Pascal Marbois.