Let me pose a question for you: If I take a Montsanto sunflower seed, grow it, harvest the seeds and plant ten of them the next year, am I stealing from Montsanto?
I am not talking about a huge corporation mass-producing an object, I am talking about people and fair use. If I spend vastly more time and effort to build my own version and I am not trying to profit off it, even if it turns out exactly the same, how is that stealing?
In plant genetics especially, there are a lot of different ways to elicit a mutation you are looking for. If I take a different road to the same result, somehow I am stealing from the patent holder. Fuck that noise.
There is no such thing as "Fair Use" for patents. It simply does not exist in the patent system. Mostly because patents deal more with the physical implementation of ideas instead of the expression of ideas. Patents bring thought to reality through a process, all of which is protected by the patent.
Even for copyrights, this would not come under fair use because you would be effectively replicating it in its entirety, basically performing an identical performance as the original, in its entirety, which you have no right to do without permission because the basis for your new plant is the original that is protected.
That said, Utility Patents exist for significant improvement upon an original patent, and you certainly have the right to improve upon the original, so long as your process is unique, novel, not a basic deviation of whats been done before, and most importantly, you arent infringing on the original patent its based on. In other words, its an actual improvement of the original that would be of some substancial benefit the original did not provide.
Huge corporation research lab or musty old basement is not relevent. Bill Gates started in the garage.
US patent law is a bit more strict than most other regions, in that it forbids anyone from making, using or selling the invention, even when the use is personal. That said, the likelihood of a patent holder bringing suit against singular personal use is rare, if not unheard of, simply for the costs of the suit even if they did find out about the infringement, whch is unlikely. I believe most european countries allow for personal use though. Best to check with your country/region though if you are worried about it.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/consolidated_laws.pdf
http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/crashcourse/rights/