Serious Eats
US Patent for Common Mexican Bean Revoked
The United States Patent and Trademark Office recently revoked the patent for the common Mexican bean. Officially named the Enola bean, a man named Larry Proctor in the 1990s claimed to have invented it after selectively breeding some beans he bought in Mexico. Turns out that this "unique" yellow legume is actually preeetty similar—identical, in fact—to the Phaseolus pinto bean, also known as the azufrado or Mayocoba bean, which is commonly planted by Latin American farmers. Hmm... [via Boing Boing]