Talk:Bowman v. Monsanto Co./GA1

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Reviewer: Delldot (talk · contribs) 23:30, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in doing this review. @GregJackP:, I see your userpage says you're retired. Is there anyone willing to implement suggested changes? If not I'm afraid I'll have to take this down in a week (unless it turns out to be promotable as is). delldot ∇. 23:30, 7 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi delldot -- thanks so much for taking on this GA review! I am willing to implement any changes that are necessary as part of the GA review process. I am familiar with this case, and I have a lot of experience editing legal articles, so please let me know if you have any questions. I also helped complete the GA review for Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, which is another article Greg nominated before his retirement. I look forward to working with you! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:28, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fantastic, thanks for taking this on! I'll work on these a bit tonight and more tomorrow. delldot ∇. 06:34, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my first round of comments. As with Glik, I'm recommending a fair amount of expansion, so take your time addressing these. I know you're also working on Glik at the same time so no pressure.

• I think the first para of the lead should have some background before the sentence "The decision held that Bowman's conduct infringed the patent rights..." Otherwise how does the reader know what Bowman's conduct was?

I re-wrote the lead to include more background information. Let me know if this requires further clarification. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 21:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• In background, maybe one more sentence about what a roundup ready crop is and why a farmer would want one? e.g. here, "Monsanto Company’s Roundup Ready soybeans are a patented, genetically modified seed stock that allows a farmer to spray crops with the glyphosate herbicide, Roundup, to kill competing plants and avoid damage to the patented soybean plants." There's some other good info in that source too.

I added a sentence from the source you recommended. Nice find! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the Other issues section should be named Controversy or something, and each item fleshed out a bit. Anything to add about the Thomas COI? Why was the Farmer Assurance Provision called Monsanto Protection Act? What did it do?

I re-named this section and made substantial edits to clarify the issues you addressed. I also moved this to the "Supreme Court" subsection. Let me know if you think anything needs further clarification. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• This sentence doesn't make sense without context: "Another concern was how the doctrine of patent exhaustion for self-replicating technologies will be viewed by the court." Who held this concern? What about how it would be viewed? Why was this concerning? What was said by whom?

I re-wrote the paragraph in which this appeared (see my comment above), but let me know if this requires further clarification. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The Commentary section is full of short paragraphs, which I think are discouraged. Could it be organized into generally people who are happy and unhappy about the decision? Or made to flow more logically some other way?

I re-wrote the section to try to get rid of short paragraphs and I tried to make the text flow logically. Let me know if you think anything needs to be changed. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:30, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Could any info be added about the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n v. Monsanto Co. case? So Monsanto sait it would not sue innocent infringers? I thought there were a few cases where it already has, am I mistaken? Where someone's corn gets pollinated with transgenic pollen, and they get sued? Actually, what exactly does 'innocent infringers' mean? Anyway, can there be an update to this section? Are there any other effects or aftermath of this case?

I added more information about the case, and I also added info about the fact that Monsanto's patent for the glyphosate-resistant soybeans expired in 2014, and that they are no longer enforcing licenses associated with the patented soybeans. Let me know if you think anything else needs clarification in this section. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note delldot that it's actually common myth that Monsanto goes after inadvertent infringers, so there won't be examples. It's one of the public perception problems in this topic.[1]

talk) 20:02, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply

]

Ah, good to know, thanks. delldot ∇. 01:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• In general, short paragraphs (under, say, 3 sentences) are discouraged. This is not a deal breaker for me but it could be a sign of poor organization or of an area that needs to be expanded. So it's worth keeping in mind as you go through and edit.

I did my best to consolidate paragraphs and to avoid paragraphs under three sentences. Let me know if you think anything else needs to be changed. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The antitrust issue is brought up a bit in the article but can this be explained more thoroughly?

I didn't see a discussion about antitrust in the article. Can you point me to where you saw this? I know that there are general antitrust concerns associated with patents for self-replicating technologies, but I didn't see any discussion of that here. Thanks, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• There's an article in Nature that should definitely be included. I can email it to you if you can't get it. Especially look at Table 2.

I added info from that article to the section about arguments before the Court and the section about commentary and analysis. Nice find! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's it for now! I'm excited to see what you add. delldot ∇. 07:38, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the thorough review! I'm excited to work on this. I am going to focus on responding to your suggestions for Gilk first, though I may jump back and forth a bit. As a general note, I agree that short paragraphs are not ideal (see

WP:PARAGRAPHS), and I'll do my best to consolidate shorter paragraphs together. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply

]

Fantastic, just ping me whenever you want me to take a closer look. delldot ∇. 01:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Delldot: my apologies for taking so long to complete this review -- life/work have been crazy busy these last few weeks. I think I have addressed everything above, but let me know if there is anything else that needs to done. Thanks again for your fantastic review! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Very cool, no rush of course. I'll read it again and come back with any last comments. delldot ∇. 01:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reread, made another series of minor copy edits. I just have two very minor questions, and one odd finding that I think might be a false positive:

• Can you think of any explanation for this hit in the cv detector? Is it possible that this article is using ours, or might an earlier editor have copied the text? Our version predates July 2014, which is the only version I see on the archive.org. If you're not sure we can do more digging to find out which existed first.

This is very interesting. I always take potential copyvio concerns very seriously, but after reviewing the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that Manzoor Elahi Laskar copied text from this Wikipedia article. I think the best evidence is that the text that appears in Mr. Laskar's article was actually cobbled together by at least three different editors over at least three days in May 2013. See, for example:

1. This May 14, 2013 edit by ChrisGualtieri adding the holding to the intro ("Patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce ..."), which was copied in Mr. Laskar's essay.
2. This May 15, 2013 edit by Jytdog adding the clause "many of which were transgenic" to the "Background" section, and
3. This May 16, 2013 edit by Cool Hand Luke that rearranged the same sentence to the form that was copied in Mr. Laskar's essay.

Mr. Laskar's article does not include a date of publication, but the cover page says he wrote the article in the 2nd year of his LLM program; if you look at the CV at his academia.edu profile, it says he was in the second and third year of his LLM program in 2013. However, much of the same copied material also appears in this article Mr. Laskar posted to SSRN on March 18, 2014 (the article is dated August 24, 2013). Can you think of another way to verify the age of Mr. Laskar's article? I know the internet archive often has large gaps, but I don't know of any other ways to check on its age. In any event, I think it is much more likely that Mr. Laskar copied the text developed by the editors above than it is that those three editors took text from Mr. Laskar's article. Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention though. Nice work! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is excellent, I'm totally convinced. Clever thinking looking up his year in school. The fact that it's by 3 different established editors clinches it for me. Add to that the fact that his homework assignment looks just like the lead to a Wikipedia article! Thanks for doing this digging.

• I'm confused by the chronology of the Petition to the Supreme Court section. Were there two instances of certiorari, or did the arguments precede the decision mentioned in the first sentence in the section? If this what I think it is, I'd reword the first sentence to something like "Bowman sought review in the United States Supreme Court, asking it to grant certiorari" and end the section with "the Court granted certiorari" or some such.

I re-arranged the order of this section per your suggestion. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 07:09, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Weird to use 2 different kinds of 'opinion' in one sentence: "After the Court published its opinion, analysts offered a range of opinions about the impact of the Court's ruling." Might be better to say something like 'took a range of stances' or 'positions'?

I changed the sentence to say "After the Court published its decision, analysts offered a range of opinions about the impact of the Court's ruling" per your suggestion. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 07:02, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is super close, as soon as we figure out the cv question it's ready to pass regardless of the other two. Thanks again for all your amazing work so far! delldot ∇. 04:58, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Delldot: thanks again for taking another look at this. Let me know if there is anything else that needs to be done. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 07:10, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for everything you've put into this, it's really great work. Images check out. broad yet focused, neutral, stable, well referenced, well written, no copyright problems. delldot ∇. 07:21, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]