Abstract

Legal decisions in the case of Percy Schmeiser, who was sued by Monsanto for patent infringement, are related to the attempt by the Organic Agriculture Protection Fund to obtain class certification in its efforts to sue Monsanto and Bayer for genetic contamination of organic canola. Together these two cases establish an unacceptable incongruity at common law between the rights enjoyed by intellectual property owners and any corresponding duties that might attach to their inventions. Marx's concept of primitive accumulation offers a suitable theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of agricultural biotechnology and these two legal cases