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Re: Roundup patent expiry and consequences??



Seems like its in four years in the USA. Someone wrote to me to say the 
patent has already expired in Canada.

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Huge biotech harvest is a boon for farmers

   By Peter Fritsch and Scott Kilman
   Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
   As reported in Dow Jones News service 24 Oct 1996

[snip]
  With the success, St. Louis-based Monsanto stands to emerge as the 
Farm Belt's green giant. But the company also will benefit in a 
less-noticed way. At its inception, biotechnology was heralded as a way 
to arm crops against disease and insects, reducing the dependency on 
chemicals. But by creating herbicide-resistant crops, Monsanto 
geneticists have given another lift to Roundup, already a remarkably 
successful herbicide and the company's most-profitable product, which 
loses its U.S. patent protection in four years.
  Since farmers will be able to spray Roundup more liberally than ever, 
some on Wall Street say Monsanto's agricultural-products division could 
post annual profit gains of 25% for the next four years. Roundup will 
lead the surge. "I keep signing checks for big bucks" to expand Roundup 
capacity "as fast as we know how," says Robert Shapiro, Monsanto's 
chairman and chief executive.
  Although the company is secretive about Roundup, officials say sales 
for treating transgenic crops and sales overseas should far outweigh 
market-share losses from generic competition.
[snip]
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