Yeah , I understand that ... the farmer is OK in my book , the elevator that sold the seeds knowing they were Monsanto should have been the ones sued ... the farmer merely tested the plants for resistance and let the ones that survived go to seed... Allowing living things to be patented leads to this type of lunacy... As others have noted Monsanto didn’t “create” this strain ,, they discovered it by testing thousands of plants and letting the resistant ones go to seed ... exactly what the farmer did.
As I recall from my college days, computer programming involves nothing more than lining up +'s and -'s in the correct order. Microsoft didn't invent +'s and -'s, yet no one seriously argues that +'s and -'s would, somehow have naturally evolved into Windows. The Monsanto patented trait (or the Bayer patented trait) was no more likely to have naturally evolved than Windows.
The Monsanto patent attaches to the product. It does not expire simply because the product was subsequently resold to a third party. Suppose I buy a copy of a movie and resell it to you. Does the copyright expire with the first resale, allowing you to make unlimited copies for commercial resale? Of course not.