Well, Monsanto certainly has both motive and precedent on their side if the DuPont-backed move goes through, SQ.

This surely is the highest duty of government — to help one big company fight another big company.

Ever seen what happens to the mice when elephants fight?

Neither have the elephants. Nor do they care.

And I specifically addressed laws recently introduced into the state legislatures of Indiana and Illinois that would all but put seed cleaning out of business. Laws which were essentially written by and lobbied for by Monsanto.

Here’s the quote:

Mr. Parr is able to continue to clean conventional soybeans, wheat and other non-patented seed crops. Monsanto has agreed to forego the financial judgment as long as Mr. Parr honors the terms of the court order.

And who’s behind the anti-trust charges? Why, their biggest competitor — DuPont. Who stands to make quite a tidy sum of money if this goes through.

This ain’t David vs. Goliath here. This is Goliath vs. Goliath — and one of them wants the federal government to help them beat down their competition.

But as long as it’s red on red, though, Quaker, is that all that matters to you?

And I’m still suspicious about “Rheinhard” and “Rinehart” here. Odd that someone with so similar a name should know so many intricate details — but not be able to readily provide sources. It’s almost as if he knows this stuff intimately, for personal reasons, and doesn’t need to have to look any of it up.

Monsanto’s tactics, if that CBS report is accurate (and Armen Keteyian has a pretty solid rep, despite working for CBS), are despicable.

Which is why they are being sued under anti-trust laws, capiche? Buying up and making unavailable all sources of non-GMO seeds seems to fit that bill, not to mention their heavy-handed treatment of farmers and seed cleaners.

Rheinhard (doesn’t that sound an awful lot like “Rinehart?” Gotta be a coincidence) tossed out his accusations and then refused to back it up. Instead, he challenged me to do his homework for him.

Now, as for that pesky wind, Quaker… I took a comment from that CBS article you quoted and did some digging, and found this:

Modes of Gene Escape from Research Plots
Pollen is unlikely to escape from research plots. Soybeans are almost completely self pollinated (Carlson and Lersten, 1987; McGregor, 1976). Caviness (1970) showed that honey bees are responsible for the occasional cross-pollination, and that thrips are ineffective pollination vectors. Soybean seed has a short time potential for high germination and vigor, and in commercial operation, fresh soybean seed is produced annually for each new season (TeKrony et al., 1987). However, some remaining seed from one crop is capable of germinating the following season, and is therefore able to cause a temporal, if not geographic, dispersal of the soybean plant. Vegetative reproduction of soybean plants does not occur under field conditions.

Survival of Soybean Plants
Soybean plants are annuals, and do in most areas of cultivation not survive from one growing season to the next (Hymowitz and Singh, 1987). Survival from one season to the next is by seed, and for commercial varieties, this requires fresh, properly grown and handled seed for each growing season (TeKrony et al., 1987).

Source: PRRI Guide on notifications and Risk Assessment, 2nd Edition, p. 49. Downloadable here: http://pubresreg.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=40

Monsanto’s tactics, if that CBS report is accurate (and Armen Keteyian has a pretty solid rep, despite working for CBS), are despicable. No argument. But I see that Monsanto won the case against the seed cleaner, before a jury — why?

Oh, here’s the other side of the story:

http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/for_the_record/maurice_parr.asp

Parr was telling his customers that it was perfectly legal for them to violate their agreement with Monsanto and save their RoundUp Ready seeds for the next year as part of his sales pitch, that Monsanto’s contract was unenforceable, and they ought to have him clean their RoundUp Ready seeds so they can save them for the next year.

And what did big, mean ol’ Monsanto do to the old guy? They agreed to waive any damages if he promised to knock it off.

Note the link to a PDF of the settlement.

Let’s see… Rinehart/Rheinhard won’t offer any proof, Quaker steps up and offers half the story…

It seems to me that people are liking this proposed smackdown of Monsanto not on its own merits (as put forward by DuPont), but because Monsanto has it coming anyway. The relative merits of DuPont’s case don’t count; all that matters is that Monsanto be punished.

That sound about right?

Ergo, Monsanto cannot possibly have done anything wrong.

Is that the argument, Joe?

Joe, are you talking about the Monsanto vs Schmeiser case?

As far as polysyllabic words… you can’t handle “copyright,” “patent,” and “trademark,” with their mere two syllables, so I’m not overly intimidated.

So, was all your study of Monsanto’s offenses done while on DuPont’s payroll or something? After all, they’re the ones pushing this case against Monsanto…

Why do you do DuPont’s dirty work, Rheinhard? What’s in it for you?

Gary Rinehart, a northern Missouri convenience store owner, said he was accosted in 2002 by a Monsanto private investigator who warned him not to fight the company. Only Rinehart doesn’t own a farmer or sell seeds.

“It was a case of mistaken identity,” he said.

Monsanto sued Rinehart in federal court before dropping its case. According to a statement on the company’s Web site, a Monsanto investigator “saw unmarked, brown bagged seed delivered to a couple of fields” nearby.

…

74-year-old Mo Parr is a seed cleaner; he is hired by farmers to separate debris from the seed to be replanted. Monsanto sued him claiming he was “aiding and abetting” farmers, helping them to violate the patent.

“There’s no way that I could be held responsible,” Parr said. “There’s no way that I could look at a soy bean and tell you if it’s Round-up Ready.”

Quote
Pollination occurs, wind drift occurs. There’s just no way to keep their products from landing in our fields.

David Runyon The company subpoenaed Parr’s bank records, without his knowledge, and found his customers. After receiving calls from Monsanto, some of them stopped talking to him.

“It really broke my heart,” Parr said. “You know, I could hardly hold a cup of coffee that morning,”

…

David Runyon and his wife Dawn put a lifetime of work into their 900-acre Indiana farm, and almost lost it all over a seed they say they never planted.

“I don’t believe any company has the right to come into someone’s home and threaten their livelihood,” Dawn said, “to bring them into such physical turmoil as this company did to us.”

The Runyons charge bio-tech giant Monsanto sent investigators to their home unannounced, demanded years of farming records, and later threatened to sue them for patent infringement. The Runyons say an anonymous tip led Monsanto to suspect that genetically modified soybeans were growing on their property.

“I wasn’t using their products, but yet they were pounding on my door demanding information, demanding records,” Dave said. “It was just plain harassment is what they were doing.”

The Runyons say they signed no agreements, and if they were contaminated with the genetically modified seed, it blew over from a neighboring farm.

“Pollination occurs, wind drift occurs. There’s just no way to keep their products from landing in our fields,” David said.

“What Monsanto is doing across the country is often, and according to farmers, trespassing even, on their land, examining their crops and trying to find some of their patented crops,” said Andrew Kimbrell, with the Center For Food Safety. “And if they do, they sue those farmers for their entire crop.”

In fact, in Feb. 2005 the Runyons received a letter from Monsanto, citing “an agreement” with the Indiana Department of Agriculture giving it the right to come on their land and test for seed contamination.

Only one problem: The Indiana Department of Agriculture didn’t exist until two months after that letter was sent. What does that say to you?

Oh, the court decided that the farmer DID deliberately use Roundup Ready seeds without paying for them — but since he didn’t actually use Roundup, he got off on that with just a wrist slap. The contempt charge was incidental — and Monsanto had NOTHING to do with that. If you destroy evidence after a judge specifically tells you not to, I got NO sympathy for your ass.

I don’t feel like doing any more research on Rheinhard’s behalf. Let him find his own evidence. And while he’s at it, he can learn the differences between “copyright,” “patent,” and “trademark.” They are NOT interchangeable.

I’m waiting for them to go after bees.