Regardless of how unnatural the conditions may seem, the licensing agreement with farmers also forbids the seeds to be resold for commercial planting, and they cannot be used for research, crop breeding or seed production.

Welcome to farming in the age of patented, genetically modified organisms, which in this case concerned soybean crops that withstand herbicide.

In the end, a unanimous Supreme Court found that intellectual property rights took precedent over nature. The high court ruled against an Indiana soybean farmer whom a lower court had ordered to pay $84,456 in damages and costs to Monsanto in 2009 for infringing its soy bean patents.