[pfdietz]

Those poor victimized farmers. There they were, practicing the traditional Spraying O' The Roundup, a practice going back centuries, when Mean Ol' Monsanto noticed they were concentrating the traces of GMO genes by the selection effect this caused. How dare those villains at Monsanto have sued over this! I'm sure they twirled their movie mustaches and cackled in evil glee.

[freeopinion]

The heavy sarcasm indicates that you think the farmers did something illegal, unfair, unethical, or wrong in some other way. They sprayed Roundup to kill undesirable vegetation. This is the very purpose for which Monsanto sells Roundup.

Do you think it is wrong to spray Roundup on thistle in your lawn to protect the grass? Even if your grass exhibits traits probably influenced by your neighbor's grass?

Would it have somehow been ok if the farmers had hand-picked and uprooted each stem of less desirable product without using Roundup? If you are trying to select for Roundup resistance, why wouldn't you use Roundup in that selection process?

Monsanto could choose not to sell Roundup to these farmers. They could have quit spreading their pollination all over the countryside indiscriminately. Instead, Monsanto chose to sue farmers who had not stolen anything, not violated any contract. Imagine if Fukushima farmers were sued because their crops exhibited some desirable trait after the nuclear meltdown and they continued to select for that trait.

[pfdietz]

Yes. I think all the cases where Monsanto sued, the farmers were doing something wrong. In most cases, this was keeping seeds to replant, or selling seeds from their harvests. This was in violation of their contracts.

> Do you think it is wrong to spray Roundup on thistle in your lawn to protect the grass?

Yes, because that will KILL YOUR GRASS. So you only do it if you're stupid or trying a little patent-violating experiment in natural selection.

The farmer who sprayed Roundup on his field to concentrate the trace of patented genes in the soybeans wasn't doing it for any legitimate purpose. Doing that on a field without the contamination would not have worked! He was trying to evade patent protection and get access to the patented genes for free. The courts properly decided he was in the wrong.

You seem to think that because contamination occurred, patent protection was lost regardless of what the farmer does. But this is not the case. The behavior of the farmer here matters.

[freeopinion]

He wasn't trying to get access to the patented genes for free. He was specifically given access to the patented genes for free. He didn't sneak around and steal it. It was forced on him. His choices were:

* don't plant

* plant, but don't harvest seed

* plant, harvest seed, test and remove any contaminant

* plant, harvest seed, take your chances

* plant, select for resistance using legally purchased chemicals

* plant, sue Monsanto for contamination

Imagine if some rogue scientist exposed me to some chemical that made all my offspring develop a patented ocular structure that produced better than 20/20 vision, and caused all their offspring to develop the same. Imagine that said scientist did so without my consent or knowledge.

Should the scientist win a lawsuit against me when my grandchildren exhibit the patented trait? Should my children be barred from reproducing?

Or does the scientist lose patent protection when they contaminate others? If I encourage my children to seek mates from a pool of others who were contaminated does that behavior matter?

Also, FWIW, an experiment to see if I have Roundup-resistant grass is not a patent-violating experiment. Anybody who so desires can run a protocol where they spray generations of crops with decreasingly diluted Roundup to select for resistance. This violates no patents. And I have in the past sacrificed portions of my lawn to eradicate a particularly noxious thistle. You may call this stupid, but my grass grew back very quickly and the thistle never returned.