The Supreme Court has delivered its decision on the patent case that we featured a while ago, in which the argument of whether a patent right is estinguished upon the sale of an item was brought to the Court by a farmer who had sued to free himself from Monsanto's binding contract when he bought seed from a silo for a part of his land.
What the court has done, in fact, was to rule in favor of extending the right of patents for those products that are part of self-replicating technologies.
The decision was unanimous. This also reinstates the 84,456 dollar lawsuit award against the farmer Vernon Bowman, in favor of Monsanto.
In fact, the court found that Bowman had intentionally used Monsanto second generation seeds to plant part of his farm after buying seeds knowing that they had been sold by Monsanto contract farmers and deposited in a silo.
However, this decision affects more than genetically engineered crops. It could affect vaccines and bacterial strains modified through research.
The court insists the ruling was narrow enough to not have changed dramatically the meaning of patent rights. And they defend the fact that a purchaser of seeds might unknowingly be buying seeds that belonged to Monsanto who might be found innocent.
However, Monsanto has sued 146 farmers since 1997, winning all 11 cases.
Source : Bloomberg 5.13.13
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