from what i understand, seed cleaning is part of a process to extract seeds from a harvested crop.
monsanto did not sue that man for cleaning seeds, they sued that guy because he marketed his services to farmers using monsanto seeds, claiming that those farmers could extract seeds from their harvest to avoid buying more monsanto seeds.
however, when you buy seeds from monsanto, you sign an explicit agreement saying that you won't do exactly that. the result of the case was that the court barred the indiana man from cleaning monsanto seeds, not all seeds in general. from what i undestand, they didn't even collect any damages from him, conditioned on him not cleaning monsanto seeds in the future.
Interestingly, this ties in with the music industry. Just as Monsanto "licenses" their seeds, and puts a prohibitive contract with what they can do with it or not, the music industry, DRM, etc.
monsanto did not sue that man for cleaning seeds, they sued that guy because he marketed his services to farmers using monsanto seeds, claiming that those farmers could extract seeds from their harvest to avoid buying more monsanto seeds.
however, when you buy seeds from monsanto, you sign an explicit agreement saying that you won't do exactly that. the result of the case was that the court barred the indiana man from cleaning monsanto seeds, not all seeds in general. from what i undestand, they didn't even collect any damages from him, conditioned on him not cleaning monsanto seeds in the future.