For eight years Indiana farmer Hugh Bowman has planted a risky, second, late-season soybean crop on 300 acres. Not able to reuse his own soybeans or buy from other farmers with similar agreements with Monsanto, Bowman went to a local grain elevator to obtain soybeans for seed that held soybeans it typically sold for feed and milling. Bowman reasoned that most of those beans would be herbicide resistant since they came from originally herbicide resistant seeds. Mr. Bowman did not keep his practice hidden from Monsanto and in October 2007 the company sued him for violating its patent. Monsanto has attracted many researchers, agribusinesses and even the Obama administration to their side – fearing a decision favoring Bowman would leave all future biotechnology developments open to poaching and therefore unprofitable. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide the limits of Monsanto’s patent rights – whether they stop at the initial sale of the first crop of resistant seeds or extend through each subsequent crop farmers grow.