But I Didn't Want Your Patented Seeds

I don't get this. Does agro-biz giant Monsanto have the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's transgenic seed or pollen should land on their property, causing the organic farmers' produce to contain Monsanto patented materials?

Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), said in a statement, "It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients."

PUBAT has filed the lawsuit on March 30, on behalf of the 270,000 plaintiffs of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association. The Organic farmers do not even want Monsanto's engineered Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seeds, by sale or accident. Already crops of organic corn, cotton, sugar beets and more have been contaminated and Monsanto has been suing hundreds of farmers for patent infringement. Photo Credit: Jaime Kowal/Getty Images

Heah Monsanto it's called patent protection not patent aggression.

According to a Vanity Fair investigative article on Monsanto, "for nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. "It's not like describing a widget," says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto's activities in rural America for years. Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply."

The Vanity Fair article goes on to say, "Even if a farmer doesn't buy G.M. seeds and doesn't want them on his land, it's a safe bet he'll get a visit from Monsanto's seed police if crops grown from G.M. seeds are discovered in his fields."

• Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto
• History of Food and Food Products
• What is a Plant Patent?
• Vanity Fair - Monsanto's Harvest of Fear
• Consumers have right to choose