A 75-year-old Indiana grain farmer will observe as the U.S. Supreme Court today weighs arguments over his right to plant and use seeds that he purchased legally.

Vernon Hugh Bowman, who grows soybeans, has carried his fight against $12 billion agribusiness giant Monsanto Company to the highest court in the land as he seeks to earn his living from the soil. He is represented by Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP.

Monsanto in 2007 sued Mr. Bowman to stop him from using and selling soybean seeds from plants that had, in turn, been grown from seeds genetically modified by Monsanto to produce plants resistant to herbicides. This allows farmers to kill neighboring weeds without harming the soybean plants.

Farmer Bowman legally purchased seeds at a grain elevator, which bought them from farmers who had, with Monsanto’s authorization, used the genetically modified Monsanto seeds to grow their soybean crops.

Monsanto claims that Mr. Bowman infringed its patents on herbicide-resistant plants and seeds by using the grain elevator seeds to grow his soybean crops. Mr. Bowman asserts that Monsanto’s sales of the original seeds to authorized purchasers exhausted Monsanto’s patent rights and therefore Monsanto cannot enforce its patents against second-generation and later seeds that resulted from planting the original seeds.

The U.S. Supreme Court accepted Mr. Bowman’s case in October of 2012 for the current session. Attorney Mark P. Walters of noted intellectual-property law firm Frommer Lawrence and Haug will argue for Mr. Bowman along with FLH partners Edgar H. Haug and Steven M. Amundson .

Source: Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP,  Indiana INdiana Business