Fighting Biopiracy
For more than six years, one man, a US citizen named Larry Proctor, held a monopoly on a yellow bean that had been in the public domain for centuries and is consumed throughout Mexico. His behavior, enabled by the US patent authorities, caused untold misery for Mexican farmers and exporters, and calls attnetion to many more similar cases.
OTTAWA– In April 1999 Larry Proctor, a United States citizen and owner of a seed company, won a patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), claiming a Mexican yellow bean. The patent conferred Proctor exclusive rights over a bean variety he called “Enola.” That decision is one of the most outrageous examples of biopiracy in the history of intellectual property systems.