US-Mexico Legal Battle Erupts over Patented "Enola" Bean.

Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) release

A US-based company, POD-NERS, L.L.C, is suing Mexican bean exporters, charging that the Mexican beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) they are selling in the US infringe POD-NERS' US patent on a yellowcolored bean variety. It's not surprising that the Mexican beans are strikingly similar to POD-NER's patented bean. That's because POD-NERS proprietary bean "Enola" originates from the highly popular "Azufrado" or "Mayocoba" bean seeds the company's president purchased in Mexico in 1994. The Mexican yellow beans have been grown in Mexico for centuries, developed by generations of Mexican farmers and more recently by Mexican plant breeders. In RAFI's opinion, the Enola bean patent is a textbook case of biopiracy, and it confirms-once again--that the plant intellectual property (IP) system is predatory on the rights of indigenous peoples and farming communities.

In 1994, Larry Proctor, the owner of a small' seed company and president of POD-NERS, L.L.C., bought a bag of commercial bean seeds in Sonora, Mexico and took them back to the US. He picked out the yellow-colored beans, planted them and allowed them to self-pollinate. Proctor selected yellow seeds for several generations until he got what he describes as a "uniform and stable population" of yellow bean seeds. Proctor applied for a US patent on November 15, 1996, barely two years after he purchased the yellow beans in Mexico.

On April 13, 1999 Larry Proctor won US patent no. 5,894,079 on the "Enola" bean variety. The patent claims exclusive monopoly on any Phaseolus vulgaris (dry bean) having a seed color of a particular shade of yellow. POD-NERS claims that it is illegal for anyone to buy, sell, offer for sale, make, use for any purpose including dry edible or propagation, or import yellow Phaseolus vulgaris of that description. (To be granted a patent, the inventor must meet three standard criteria. The invention must be new, useful and non-obvious.)

On May 28, 1999 Larry Proctor won a US Plant Variety Protection Certificate (No. 9700027) on the Enola bean variety. The PVP certificate states that the Enola dry bean variety "has distinctly colored seed which is unlike any dry bean currently being produced in the United States" (To receive plant variety protection in the US, a variety must be new, stable, uniform and distinct.)

In late 1999, armed with a US patent and a breeders' 'right certificate (double IP protection), Proctor brought...