Monsanto awarded $780K Judgment
Against Mississippi Soybean Farmer

LENA MITCHELL / Daily Journal 26nov02

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court accepts his case and reverses the decision of the appeals court, Pontotoc farmer Homan McFarling will be paying Monsanto Company $780,000 in damages for patent infringement.

Monsanto was awarded the judgment in a lawsuit in which the company charged McFarling violated its patent for Roundup Ready soybean seed.

"There was a two-to-one vote against him and I'm filing a petition this week for certiori to the U.S. Supreme Court on the question of whether a Mississippi farmer can be sued in Missouri for exclusively Mississippi activities," said Tupelo attorney Jim Waide, who represents McFarling.

Biotechnology giant Monsanto has filed numerous suits against farmers across the nation for patent infringement, and Waide represents several of them. Most of the lawsuits are filed in Missouri, where the company is based.

"We are appealing on the grounds that the U.S. Supreme Court and all the other circuits disagree with that," Waide said. "We're also filing an appeal to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on the validity of the entire contract. We believe that the contract asking for enormous damages for what was a very small actual loss is unconstitutional, an excessive fine."

Monsanto has patented its soybean and cotton seeds which have been genetically engineered to resist its Roundup brand herbicide. When Roundup is sprayed on a field planted with these seeds, it will kill the weeds without harming the crop.

Monsanto contends saving seeds after their Roundup Ready crops have been harvested violates the patent, while the farmers contend there is no patent on the seeds, which are products of nature.

Other similar cases Waide represents are still some time away from being adjudicated in the courts.

"This will probably be the decisive case when the Supreme Court rules on the jurisdictional issue and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rules on the merits," Waide said.

ISB News Report May02

On March 8, the Federal Circuit heard arguments in a lawsuit originally filed by Monsanto Company against Mississippi soybean farmer Homan McFarling. At the center of the controversy is Monsanto's policy of prohibiting farmers from saving or reusing its RoundUp-resistant seeds once the initial genetically-modified crop is grown. Jim Waide, McFarling's attorney, has opined that the traditional farming practice of replanting saved seeds is at stake.

In a similar lawsuit, Monsanto sued Mississippi farmer Mitchell Scruggs for using seed from genetically-modified soybeans and cotton. According to Scruggs's attorney, there is a significant question about whether a utility patent that claims seed can extend to the progeny of that seed. This question may not be that difficult to answer. Although the Plant Variety Protection Act provides a farmer's exemption for using seed, US utility patent law lacks such an exemption. Under US patent law, therefore, the inquiry is whether the accused infringer is using an invention covered by the patent claim. Period. The question that the McFarling and Scruggs cases provokes is whether Congress will be motivated to create a special farmers exemption in the law that governs utility patents.

source: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2002/news02.May.html 27nov02