Seeds, strains and a touch of exhaustion: a reader asks ...

Bowman: ready for
a fight?

The IPKat has recently received a question from veteran UK patent attorney Michael Dean, two questions actually, which are reproduced here:

"I have come across a US case awaiting judgment, Bowman v Monsanto [which seems to be brewing up nicely according to the SCOTUS weblog here], where the latter assert they have rights against second (and later) generation seeds from a patented strain (of seeds first sold to Mr Bowman) and this is contested by a principle of exhaustion of rights. 

So far as you are aware:

1. Has there been any such view aired against non-biological inventions, e.g. patented computer viruses or self-replicating nano-machines?

2. Has there been any such view aired in the UK/Europe for biological or non-biological inventions?".

This Kat regrets that this case has travelled all the way to the US Supreme Court without anyone asking him about it at all, but he suspects that there may be many folk wandering around who think of little else.  He invites them to respond to Michael's question, preferably by posting their valuable opinions below.

Merpel feels vaguely uncomfortable about patents for computer viruses, though she imagines in her innocence that they can be useful in their own right as programs for the purpose of testing the efficacy of anti-virus programs.