The U.S. Supreme Court recently closed its 2012 term with its usual headline-grabbing flurry of June decisions. Several of those decisions, as well as many more that received less publicity, will affect business interests. In...more
In This Issue: • Judgment of Infringement Entered as Sanction • Patent Exhaustion Does Not Apply to Harvested Seeds • Judges Disagree on § 101 Standards • Litigation Is Not a Domestic Industry - Excerpt...more
Patent Exhaustion Rejected: Patented Seed Purchaser Has No Right to Make Copies: Bowman v. Monsanto Co. - In a narrow ruling that reaffirms the scope of patent protection over seeds, and possibly over other...more
The facts behind the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Monsanto v. Bowman are simple enough. Farmers are able to buy soybeans containing Monsanto’s patented glyphosate resistance technology under a license that permits them to...more
The Supreme Court in Bowman v. Monsanto Co. ruled unanimously that a farmer’s replanting of harvested seeds constituted making new infringing articles. While the case is important for agricultural industries, the Supreme...more
In Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the Supreme Court held that the doctrine of patent exhaustion does not give a farmer who has bought patented seeds the right to “reproduce” them through planting and harvesting without the patent...more
On May 13, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Bowman v. Monsanto, decided whether a soybean farmer infringed Monsanto’s patent by replanting patented soybeans harvested from previous crops. The Court unanimously...more
On May 13, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., 569 U.S. ___ (2013), which concerned whether and how patent exhaustion applies to self-replicating patented articles. Monsanto...more
Today, in a case having the potential to upset the agricultural biotech industry, Justice Elena Kagan delivered the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision rejecting farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman’s patent exhaustion defense....more
On May 13, 2013, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held in Monsan to v. Bowman that the doctrine of patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds for planting and harvesting without the patent holder's...more
Patent rights in a patented self-replicating technology, such as seeds, continue until the patent term is ended and not before. On May 13, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowman v. Monsanto that the patent rights in seeds are...more
On May 13, 2013, in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Federal Circuit's affirmance of the district court's judgment that Bowman infringed U.S. Patents No. 5,352,605 and No. RE39,247, which related to...more
Life science companies in general (and seed companies in particular) are breathing a sigh of relief following the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Bowman v. Monsanto. As Bowman wended its way through district...more
Today, in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the Supreme Court determined that the doctrine of patent exhaustion did not permit a farmer who buys patented seeds to reproduce them through planting and harvesting without the patent...more
Full text copy of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bowman v. Monsanto Co. et al that Monsanto’s patent rights extend to future generations of its patented seeds. From Joe Barnes at the Washington Post: “Farmers must pay...more
Patent infringement arises when one “makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells” a patented invention without authority from the patent holder. However, once the first authorized sale of the patented product has occurred, the...more
On February 19, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Vernon Hugh Bowman v. Monsanto Company. This case has far-reaching implications for the patent exhaustion or first sale doctrine in...more
The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., with Mark P. Walters representing Farmer Bowman, Seth Waxman representing Monsanto, and Melissa Arbus Sherry representing the Department of Justice. ...more
In an amicus brief filed in support of respondents Monsanto Co. et al. last month, the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) asked the Supreme Court to affirm that petitioner Vernon Bowman infringed Monsanto's patents on...more
The "conventional wisdom" surrounding the Bowman v. Monsanto case now before the Supreme Court on certiorari is that it is "David v. Goliath," the salt-of-the-earth farmer versus the corporate monolith, and an example of the...more