Isn't it possible to claim that the other party let the seeds escape into the wild?
And what would the legal status be if the new crop becomes the dominant species in the wild?
And what would the legal status be if the new crop becomes the dominant species in the wild?
and, "dominant species in the wild": Domestic crops are so pampered, so dependent on our adding nutrients, keeping predators and competitors at bay, that they stand very little chance of surviving long enough in the wild to be able to propagate. Dominant species? Not a chance.
Are you talking about this case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeise...
In that case the farmer was also specifically selecting for the contaminated seeds. That makes the "his crops got accidentally contaminated and monsanto sued him for it" narrative very misleading.
>As established in the original Federal Court trial decision, Percy Schmeiser, a canola breeder and grower in Bruno, Saskatchewan, first discovered Roundup-resistant canola in his crops in 1997.[5] He had used Roundup herbicide to clear weeds around power poles and in ditches adjacent to a public road running beside one of his fields, and noticed that some of the canola which had been sprayed had survived. Schmeiser then performed a test by applying Roundup to an additional 3 acres (12,000 m2) to 4 acres (16,000 m2) of the same field. He found that 60% of the canola plants survived. At harvest time, Schmeiser instructed a farmhand to harvest the test field. That seed was stored separately from the rest of the harvest, and used the next year to seed approximately 1,000 acres (4 km²) of canola.