"Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? This week, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the question. The Court is pondering an appeals court decision saying that such planting can, in fact, infringe patents."
via arstechnica.com
"Self-Replicating Inventions : Supreme Court asks for Government’s Views in Monsanto Patent Exhaustion Case
By Dennis Crouch
Bowman v. Monsanto (Supreme Court Docket No. 11-796, 2012)
In 2011, the Federal Circuit again affirmed that Monsanto's genetically modified seeds patents can be used to stop farmers from saving and replanting the GM seeds. The farmer, Vernon Bowman, then petitioned the Supreme Court asking for a writ of certiorari ."
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"As the national debt and budget issues monopolize the airwaves, it strikes me how little I remember from my undergraduate government courses. I can rattle off the names of several key representatives and senators, but the inner workings of their roles conjuring a bill into a law are a bit fuzzy. If you have found yourself in a similar predicament (or you are a political science buff who thrives on clever ways to explain governmental processes) this infographic is for you.
With the aesthetics of The Game of Life, today’s infographic thoroughly walks us through the trip a bill takes from introduction into the House of Representatives through publication as an official law."
France
"No pig may be called Napoleon by its Owner"
"Yes, the great French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, responsible for conquering most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), before finally being bested at Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington. The French had the utmost respect for him, and it is thought that George Orwell’s famous short story, Animal Farm, in which the pig representing Stalin was named Napoleon, launched the laws publication. Even in France, the pig is often referred to as “Caesar” rather than “Napoleon” in the book, but this is more due to Napoleon being represented as Stalin rather than being represented as a pig. Today, however, many people consider the law a joke and hardly anyone respects it, let alone know it exists."
23 countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of 523 people; however, this figure does not include the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, which again refused to divulge figures on its use of the death penalty.
Date Published: 28 March 2011
"A federal judge has halted an attempt to grow banned genetically modified sugar beets in the United States.
The herbicide-tolerant beets represent a whopping 95% of the sugar beets sold in the US and about half of the sugar. The were first brought to market n 2007 but last August the DC-based Center for Food Safety and other advocacy organizations successfully sued to ban the beets, pointing out that an environmental impact statement has not yet been completed, as US law requires."
