Law Commons^™

Weeds, Seeds, & Deeds Redux: Natural And Legal Evolution In The U.S. Seed Wars, Rebecca Stewart

Rebecca K Stewart

Ever since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began issuing utility patents for plants, the United States has sat squarely on the frontlines of what have come to be known as the “seed wars.” In the last two decades, the majority of battles in the U.S. seed wars have been waged in the form of patent infringement lawsuits. Typically these suits are filed by biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto against farmers accused of saving and planting patented seed that self-replicates to produce progeny embodying—and thus infringing—the biotech corporations’ patented inventions.

Yet in recent years, the seed wars have begun to …

Hiding The Ball: The Sidestepping Of National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permitting Requirements By Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Adam S. Carlesco

Adam S Carlesco

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are one of the few point sources under Clean Water Act jurisdiction that are not required to meet more stringent NPDES permitting requirements. After a series of court cases, the EPA proposed rulemaking requiring the submission of information by CAFO operators to create a national database of CAFO locations and operation information, yet that rulemaking was subsequently abandoned. This paper proposes that EPA implement the proposedreporting requirements put forth in their 2010 settlement agreement with environmental petitioners.