No Patents on Plants and Animals!
21.05.2015 Initiative “no patents on seed” call to “Act now – save the future of our food!”
The signatories 
call for an immediate amendment of the Implementing Regulation to the European Patent Convention and for a change in European Patent law to finally exclude all breeding processes and breeding material, plant and animal characteristics, gene sequences, plants and animals, as well as food derived thereof from patentability.
On 25 March 2015, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) confirmed the view that current interpretation of patent law is unacceptable. Whilst processes for conventional breeding cannot be patented, plants and animals stemming from these processes can be patented. This is not only contradictory in itself, but also undermines the prohibitions in European patent law: “Plant and animal varieties or essentially biological processes for production plants and animals” are excluded from patentability (Art 53 b, EPC). The decision made by the Enlarged Board of Appeal will be binding for all other EPO decisions in this context, and therefore the rules for the interpretation of the European Patent Convention need to be changed in order to strengthen and uphold current prohibitions already set out in European Patent Law. The Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation has the power to do this by changing the Implementing Regulation.
Please help us to put more pressure on the Administrative Council to ensure that this happens!
