How Real Is the Concern that Seed Patents Will Turn Farmers into Inadvertent Infringers?

Much has been made of the supposed problem of farmers being exposed to liability for patent infringement based on the inadvertent, or even unavoidable, presence of patented genetically modified plants on the farmer’s fields. It has resulted in calls for limitations on the scope and enforceability of patents that would in all likelihood substantially undercut the ability of many innovators to obtain effective intellectual property protection for their products. These “reforms” would be especially problematic for agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto, but the repercussions could be more widespread, impacting a host of important cutting-edge technologies like synthetic biology and nanotechnology.