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Monsanto, a company that genetically modifies seeds that hold 10 U.S. patents, is suing Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Brownman for copyright infringement.

The Supreme Court heard the case in oral argument Feb. 16. The question was whether patent rights on the DNA of genetically modified seeds extends passed the first generation of crops.

Generally when farmers buy seeds from companies such as Monsanto, they must sign a contract promising not to save the seeds from the resulting crop, meaning farmers buy new seed every year.

However in 2007 Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Brownman thought he had figured out a loophole to grow second-generation seeds. He bought seeds from a mixed silo – a practice known as “seed sharing” that is as old as farming itself.

Brownman hoped to find some seeds that contained Monsanto’s roundup resistant gene, and did. He then planted a second-generation crop with those seeds.

Brownman argued that a doctrine known as patent exhaustion gives him control over products he has obtained legally. But so far, all lower courts ruled that Brownman committed patent infringement.

The lawyer for Monsanto, Seth P. Waxman, a former U.S. Solicitor general, argued that “without the ability to limit reproduction of soybeans containing this patented trait, Monsanto could not have commercialized its invention and never would have produced what is, by now, the most popular agricultural technology in America.”

Brownman’s lawyer, Mark P. Walters, argued that companies could rely on contracts rather than patent law to protect their inventions, an answer that did not seem to satisfy several of the justices.

Many of the Justices’ responded to Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion in that companies would be unable to make money off contracts alone and thus stop development. The opinion of Justice Sonia Sotomayo was that “the exhaustion doctrine permits you to use the goods that you buy. It never permits you to make another item from that item you bought.”

The justices’ opinion seemed to be on the side of Monsanto before the debate even began. However, the Court allowed Brownman to give his 30-minute oral argument with little interuption.

Since the mid-1990s, Monsanto has sued around 145 indiviual farmers. The ruling of this case has two options: the Status Quo, or completely redefining of how organic copyright can play out. If the court rules in favor of Brownman then according to Chuck Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University, there will be “cataclysmic repercussions for the business model in the seed bitotech industry.”