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Mangowaffle
Stranger


Registered: 08/11/17
Posts: 366
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
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Culture "copyright"
#27129539 - 01/06/21 12:16 AM (3 years, 22 days ago) |
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Long story short, a spawn supplier is threatening a fellow grower in my state with legal action because he cloned a mushroom that was grown from one of the suppliers cultures, and sold the spawn made from that clone. Is it even possible to "own" a mushroom culture? I feel like if you clone a mushroom, do the agar work etc there's no way anyone could pursue you with legal action for selling the resulting culture/spawn. Is there any method of DNA testing that would back up the spawn suppliers claim of ownership, or is he just flexing?
The company is renowned in my local circle for bullying people and trying to kill any and all competition. It's very annoying.
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ModularMind
M.P.F.



Registered: 02/09/10
Posts: 7,902
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I would think he’d need something signed. Burden of proof is on the seller. You can sell tomatoes from plants you bought.
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WildFungalGrowth
Stranger

Registered: 12/20/20
Posts: 49
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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He's just flexing. You can not patent the result of artificial selection even if it is unique, you may be able to patent gene sequences but I doubt he is selectively modifying genes in his mushroom cultures and patenting the gene sequences. He would have flexed about that if he did.
If your friend did sign something though, then that may be another story. When in doubt, consult a lawyer.
Edited by WildFungalGrowth (01/06/21 01:48 AM)
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Tattersail



Registered: 04/11/18
Posts: 285
Last seen: 1 year, 11 months
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I know with roses there are patents (or whatever the equivalent is) for many of the varieties. I can take cuttings from my roses to grow more plants for myself but I would not be legally able to sell them. I think this was stated on the label when I bought them though. I believe one could sell the cut roses, but not the plants.
If the mushroom guy wants a leg to stand on he'd have to have at least gone through a particular process with lots of documentation and legal backup to say that mushroom "belongs" to him. While maybe not impossible (that's where a lawyer comes in handy), I think it would be difficult. He'd also have to have made the "patent" - if a legal document exists - clear at the time of purchasing.
Another possibility is that he has copyrighted the common name of the mushroom so it couldn't be used by others, but all you'd have to do is call it something else when selling. Like if he called it "Honey Tree" or something and copyrighted that name for his own business, but in that case it's the wording that is protected and not the genetics.
What's to say the fellow-grower didn't clone, then produce spore prints/swabs from which to produce his "own" mushroom which is no longer a direct clone but looks the same? Once a mushroom has produced spores, subsequent offspring are no longer exactly the same as the parent mushroom.
I could be quite wrong, I'm certainly not a lawyer or expert on this issue, but I've heard of plenty of instances where a seller has tried to claim they own something and they do not, but still they use threats against the competition.
-------------------- LAGM2021 Trades We may lose or we may win, but we'll never be here again
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SHROOMSISAY01
Mr. Shrooms


Registered: 01/22/17
Posts: 3,849
Loc: Virginia, USA
Last seen: 2 days, 16 hours
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They made a show about this it is called Scare Tatics
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taku
° shapeshifter ∆



Registered: 12/05/20
Posts: 731
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 12 hours, 55 minutes
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How could you own something that's been cultivated from the wild? I mean, all mushrooms grown everywhere originated from a wild mushroom at some point. The fact that people have selected for the properties they want from the offspring is great, but the logic fails so badly it hurts my brain. I'm not sure I fully understand the real world of growing food though, so keep that in mind.
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SHROOMSISAY01
Mr. Shrooms


Registered: 01/22/17
Posts: 3,849
Loc: Virginia, USA
Last seen: 2 days, 16 hours
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Re: Culture "copyright" [Re: taku]
#27133959 - 01/07/21 08:09 PM (3 years, 20 days ago) |
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I don't think they can. But they may have copy weighted the name and he is more than likely selling them under the same name.
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