The problem is that in the process of this he never terminated the agreement
he had with Monsanto covering use of the kinds of seeds he bought. Monsanto's
argument was, as I read it, that the agreement didn't say anything about the
source of the seeds, he knew he was buying seeds covered by his agreement, and
he violated that agreement. This would be very different from the case of
someone who didn't have any agreement with Monsanto, and Monsanto would
have a much harder time trying to argue that the mere act of buying seeds from a
commodity grain elevator, where no contract or agreement of any sort was
required, somehow bound someone to terms they'd never been offered.
The
farmer here would've been in a much better position had he sold his seed, sent
Monsanto written notice that he was terminating the agreement after having
disposed of all Monsanto-licensed seeds per it's terms and would not be renewing
it or purchasing seeds under it's terms, and then next season gone to the
commodity grain elevator. That would've made a clean break and limited
Monsanto's ability to rely on the terms of that agreement to control the
outcome. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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