Bowman v. Monsanto Company

Facts

The plaintiff, Monsanto, is a large agricultural company. Monsanto makes a number of products including a soybean seed containing altered genetic materials. Monsanto has patents covering this technology, including the seed incorporating their genetic modification. Monsanto sells and allows other companies to sell their soybean seed to growers who agree to a special licensing agreement. Under the agreement, a farmer may not save any of the harvested soybeans for replanting, nor sell them to anyone else for that purpose. The primary modification in Monsanto’s seeds is that it allows plants to survive exposure to glyphosate an active ingredient in many herbicides. The defendant, Mr. Bowman, is a farmer in Indiana. He used Monsanto’s seeds for his crop every year. One year he elected to plant a second crop late in season, Mr. Bowman thought it was risky and so he was unwilling to pay the premium price for Monsanto’s seeds. Instead, he went to a grain elevator and purchased soybeans intended for consumption by humans or animals. He knew these soybeans came from prior harvest of farmers who used Monsanto’s seed, and he believed the soybeans would contain Monsanto’s patented genetic modification. He planted these in his field, and when he applied the herbicide many survived and produced a new crop with the genetic modification Monsanto created. Bowman saved seeds from that crop and repeated the process until he had planted eight crops like this. Monsanto found out and sued.