The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider how patent rules apply to self-replicating technologies, accepting an appeal from a farmer seeking to circumvent Monsanto Co. (MON)’s planting restrictions on its genetically modified seeds.
The justices today said they will review a federal appeals court decision that Vernon Hugh Bowman infringed Monsanto’s patents when he planted soybeans he had bought from a grain elevator. Those beans were the product of seeds covered by Monsanto’s patents, and the St. Louis-based company says its rights extend to the second-generation beans.
