24 January 2019 / No Patents on Seeds! together with more than 40 other organisations today published an international appeal to the president of the European Patent Office (EPO), António Campinos. The president, who is Portuguese, is being asked to halt all pending patent applications on plants and animals derived from conventional breeding. These patents cover vegetables, including broccoli and tomatoes. Companies such as Bayer and Syngenta want to monopolise the breeding of the plants and food derived thereof through the misuse of patents. In December 2018 the EPO declared that these patents could be allowed, contrary to a decision made in 2017 by the governments of its 38 contracting states saying that they were prohibited.

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