Did you know that you can patent colors, numbers, plants and animals and that 20 percent of your genes are patented and owned by private corporations? This documentary is a creative investigation that uncovers who profits from intellectual property and who bears the economic and social consequences.—Hannah Leonie Prinzler

On October 7th 2012, the New York Times leads with the front page headline 'Patents, Used as a Sword' - conveying to a larger audience what a few observers have been claiming for a while: There is a global war going on. It is a war that sees patents as strategic weapons, in which terrain is being mined with patents and where patents surface and submerge as submarines. Since 2011 giant technology companies like Apple and Google have invested more money into patents than they have spent for the development of new innovations. But it is not a virtual war being fought only over market shares and equity prices. Even normal people like breast cancer patient Lisbeth Ceriani can suddenly find themselves between the frontlines: "It is rather shocking that the American Patent Office chose to give a patent on a gene. So I have a gene inside of me that my doctor is not allowed to look at because the company Myriad owns the patent on the gene." (Lisbeth Ceriani) How is it possible that plants, cells and genes are patented at all? The search for answers takes Hannah all around the globe. Along her journey into the world of patents she meets British inventor James Dyson and American business gurus in the Silicon Valley. She discovers the war strategies that patent attorneys apply and hears Lisbeth Ceriani's shocking story of her body's gene that she doesn't own. In Geneva, Hannah visits the World Intellectual Property Organization and travels to India, the world's largest manufacturer of generic, meaning patent-free, medicines. She learns what India has come up with to protect its genetic resources and meets Anil Gupta, the "Gandhi of Innovation". Are patents the only way to inspire innovation? At the end of her journey, Hannah hopes to find an answer to that question in an Arizona desert where a bunch of enthusiasts are building the world's first open-source cars.—Hannah Leonie Prinzler