Since 1930, the US legal system has slowly moved towards the patentability of plants and other organisms. In 1980, this trend took a turn for the worse when it was ruled that plants could be patented under a utility patent which provides 20 years of intellectual property control and the ability to sue anyone who uses patented plants, even unknowingly. Since then, a growing number of companies have begun pursuing patents on plants, a trend that is making it exceptionally difficult for researchers to continue their work.
The Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) was established in 2012 as an effort to fight against these trends by producing seeds that are free to be used and distributed by anyone. The group has struggled to develop the legal protections they need because there are no copyright protections to help them like there are for the open source software industry. They currently rely on a simply, three line pledge that asks users not to restrict anyone else in their use of the seeds: a very small step towards providing the legal protection they need.