The Supreme Court came down overwhelmingly on the side of Monsanto today, ruling unanimously that an Indiana farmer violated Monsanto's patent on genetically modified soybeans when he culled some from a grain elevator and used them to replant his own crop in future years.
It seemed pretty obvious - Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman knew what he was doing, he bought the seed specifically to see if he could skirt the rules by getting his second crop from a grain elevator - in essence, the court ruled he was making copies of a patented invention, just like Monsanto claimed. "If simple copying were a protected use, a patent would plummet in value after the first sale of the first item containing the invention," Justice Elena Kagan ruled in the short 10-page opinion.
The claim that Bowman acquired the seeds 'innocently', as his lawyers claimed, was believed by precisely no one. The beans did not plant themselves for 8 generations.
Weirdest claim about the slippery slope of this; that this win for Monsanto leads to higher prices. It's like saying Wal-Mart leads to higher prices on Levi's jeans because they make sell their own brand for less. Basically, you really have to be an anti-science or anti-business (or both) crackpot to find a way for that to be true.
Now the anti-Monsanto groups can legitimately claim what they always claimed anyway - that Monsanto sues farmers who use their seed without buying it.
