The year is 2013.

For six long years, an Indiana farmer, one Vernon Hugh Bowman, has petitioned a court case that has finally reached all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The case all started with seeds.

Here's the backstory.

In 1999, Bowman bought some soybean seeds at a local grain elevator.

Those seeds had been acquired by that grain elevator from other local farmers.

They were the leftovers from their first crop.

Those local farmers had bought the soybean seeds from Monsanto, the big agribusiness.

So here's the problem.

Monsanto had a patent on a special gene that was inside those soybean seeds.

And Monsanto sold those special soybean seeds with a limited use license.

That meant farmers could only plant them once.

The seeds couldn't be resold for a second crop and the harvest from the first crop

could not be replanted. So in 2007, when Monsanto learned that Vernon Hugh Bowman was planting their patented

soybean seeds for a second crop, they sued them. This was not that unusual for Monsanto. In the early 2000s, the company

got a reputation for suing farmers aggressively for patent infringement.

There was even a famous case in Canada where a farmer alleged that pollen from Monsanto's genetically modified crops had blown into his field.

When Monsanto found the pollenin there, they sued and they won.

Because Monsanto's patent protection was airtight.

If the rule were otherwise, patents on seeds would be largely worthless because as soon as the first few seeds were sold,

anyone else could reproduce and sell them.

Accordingly, we affirm the Federal Circuit.

...