“Farmers Supreme Court Challenge Puts Monsanto Patents at Risk”

“With his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, ‘Im not even big enough to be called a farmer.’

Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday [Feb. 19] against the worlds largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could have a huge impact on the future of genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medical research to software.

At stake in Mr. Bowmans case is whether patents on seeds or other things that can self-replicate extend beyond the first generation of the products.

It is one of two cases before the Supreme Court related to the patenting of living organisms, a practice that has helped give rise to the biotechnology industry but which critics have long considered immoral,” quoting Andrew Pollack in The New York Times.
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