Summary Of Bowman Vs Monsanto

Today on this exam, I will be focusing on a Supreme Court case that was heard during the 2012-13 term. The case that I’m doing is named, “Bowman v. Monsanto”. This Supreme Court case focuses on the dealing of seeds and patents incorporated into their genetic material. Bowman versus Monsanto was argued on February 19th, 2013 and granted on October 5th, 2013.

The word patent means a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention. Bowman v. Monsanto is about the United States Patent and Trademark Office granting the Monsanto company a patent for genetic material from a virus in 1994 that could give a plant new genetic material.

Bowman then purchased a second-generation of seeds from a grain elevator for another second-generation of growing, but he saved some seeds violating the terms of Monsanto’s using products. Later in 2006, The Monsanto Company contacted Bowman to review his farm planting activities and discovered that he owned some plants with the patent gene, so Bowman was sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. The district court allowed for an appellate jurisdiction and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Monsanto is that it shouldn’t matter if someone uses a product that THEY bought with their own money for other uses. If someone has to agree to the terms of something then they should have the right to do whatever they please because as the Court stated in its ruling, the product will keep its value. Overall, My opinion is that nobody should be done wrong just because their doing something goes against a “Terms of Agreement” which doesn’t seem like a real crime. In the end, Vernon Hugh Bowman won the case all due to Bowman’s one-time purchase of Monsanto’s product which allowed him to take advantage of their patent products over seasons without having to respect the rights of a patent