Second, there will be a net outflow of foreign exchange, as licensing fees and royalties are paid on any commercial products eventually exported back to their domestic markets. A third major problem resulting from the patenting of plants is genetic pollution and the loss of biodiversity. As a result, vast monocultures are planted with genetically identical seed, which in turn leads to thriving blights and the disappearance of local plant varieties. Furthermore, bees and other pollinators transfer the genes of transgenic crops to wild relatives, affecting local ecosystems in significant, potentially catastrophic ways. This genetic pollution, as it is being called, becomes part of the gene pool and can never be remediated.
Extinction is forever.
The U.S. Congress should put the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office on a short leash and should reconsider whether patenting life is appropriate public policy. The U.S. Congress should put the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office on a short leash and should reconsider whether patenting life is appropriate public policy. This clause was so controversial that the text decrees it must be reviewed in 1999. Already, the U.S. government has informally indicated its preference for deleting the sui generis option. The U.S. should cease its campaign to outlaw the a priori rights of communities to the resources that sustain them.