No strings on Monsanto rice offer

6 April 2000



‘No strings’ on Monsanto rice offer

MONSANTO insists there are no hidden strings attached to its promise to make “a working draft” of the rice genome freely available to scientists.

Company officials said researchers who found new applications were free to patent their inventions, reports the Financial Times.

However, Monsanto is expected to be given the opportunity to negotiate access to patents issued on these inventions on a non-exclusive basis.

The company said it would pay a licence fee for this.

• Monsanto shares rice data, FWi, yesterday (05 April, 2000)
• Financial Times 06/04/2000 page 15