Notes on the collection of royalties on RR1 soybeans and other emblematic issues in intellectual property

Abstract

In a ruling handed down on 24 September of this year, the 5th Civil Chamber of the Court of Justice of Rio Grande do Sul granted Monsanto's appeal, so that the company may for the time being continue to collect royalties from farmers who plant transgenic soybeans, reversing the first-instance judgment of 2012, which had suspended the collection of royalties and reserved to growers the right to sell their output as food or raw material. Although still open to challenge by infringing appeal, the ruling removes for now the possibility for the appellees to recover what was unduly paid to the appellant after 31 August 2010. The decision may also have a direct effect on the collection of royalties on the second generation of transgenic soybeans, RR2. This article examines the following questions: the extinction of the economic right in the invention; the specific features of article 42 of Law 9,279/96; the elements of the negative right under article 42; the claims of pipeline patents; direct human intervention as an objective requirement for the appropriation of a technology; and protection under the plant variety statute, corpus mysticum versus corpus mechanicum.