Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
I don't disagree about the farmer in this case - haven't I said so nearly every post in this thread? Without a full knowledge of the case, I can't be sure, but this does not seem like a case of willful infringement. I don't think that the farmer can sue Monsanto either, unless he can prove willful contamination of the supply chain by Monsanto. It's likely that there's a bad actor here - whoever sold the seed to the elevator is the infringer here, and they are the person who should pay damages. In other cases, if indeed Monsanto is intentionally introducing GMOs into the supply chain, I would agree that they are open for a lawsuit - to my knowledge, this is not the case.
In that case it seems like we're coming at it from different angles but we agree.

The issue you have with seeds as a living organism is that once the genie is out of the bottle you can't realistically stop it spreading. Monsanto should not be allowed to test other farmers seeds like this for their genetic markers unless they can first prove already wilful infringement. Furthermore if/once seeds get into grain elevators then farmers should be able to use those grains freely and the grain elevator shouldn't be required to do anything special they wouldn't already have to either.

Monsanto should be able to sue whoever violated their agreements, but the farmer and grain elevator (and anyone who subsequently purchases from the grain elevator) are not at fault for Monsanto's lousy business model. If Monsanto can't make a profit once they've unleashed the genie then so be it they can go bankrupt like any other private entity.