Supreme Court Considers GM Crop Patent Case

[Poll_Blind]

1. The Supreme Court usually takes on a decision like then, from a lower court, when they want to...

...either modify, clarify or toss out the ruling. But never, AFAIK, to go "Appeals court, you nailed it!"

I have little doubt the Obama administration will do everything they can to toe Monsanto's line. Since the nature of this case, at least based on the excerpt, involves a contract between a farmer and Monsanto I can only assume the party in jeopardy to be the original farmer. I can't imagine that a farmer purchasing these seeds could be in jeopardy...but that is up to the court to decide I suppose.

The copyright angle is strange but not unusual nowdays. If the seeds reproduce themselves I cannot imagine the court would find against a farmer growing them, per se, as that is their intended use. It also seems unusually onerous to put the burden of copyright on a farmer for things his plant may do, ultimately without his assistance.

I mean, DVDs don't copy themselves when you play them. Books don't copy themselves during the process of reading. But plants reproduce themselves during the process of their growth and life cycle and so it's hard to imagine they would find it reasonable to burden the farmer too heavily. Breaking the contract intentionally is another matter.

PB