A legal ruling says DuPont violated its contract with rival Monsanto by developing genetically modified soybeans created with Monsanto’s technology, but leaves open DuPont’s challenge of the contract on antitrust grounds.
The ruling in St Louis federal court is the latest turn in a lawsuit between the world’s two biggest seed companies. At issue is how much freedom Monsanto Co’s competitors have to develop crops containing their own biotech traits using Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready gene, which is inserted in the vast majority of US corn and soybean crops.
The Roundup Ready gene makes crops resistant to its Roundup herbicide, making weed control cheaper and easier for farmers because they can spray the herbicide without hurting their crop.
The trait has become the industry standard since Monsanto introduced it in 1996.
Monsanto sued DuPont last spring, claiming it was illegal for DuPont to sell its new line of biotech seeds called Optimum GAT.
That line of seeds adds a new DuPont gene to the older line of Roundup Ready corn and soybean plants that DuPont developed under a license with Monsanto.
US District Judge Richard Webber said in Friday’s ruling that Monsanto’s licensing agreement clearly prohibits DuPont from inserting its Optimum GAT gene into corn and soybean plants with Monsanto traits.
But Webber said his ruling was narrow and didn’t consider whether Monsanto has the right under antitrust laws to restrict how competitors breed and sell plants with Monsanto traits.
DuPont is challenging its licensing agreement with Monsanto on antitrust grounds, in the midst of a US Department of Justice antitrust investigation into Monsanto that is examining whether there is anticompetitive behavior in the seed industry.
“This litigation is just beginning; we will now vigorously pursue our antitrust, license and patent fraud claims,” DuPont senior vice president and general counsel Thomas Sager said in a statement on Saturday.
Monsanto spokesman Lee Quarles said DuPont’s claims of antitrust violations in the contract are a “continued smoke screen and effort to obscure the significance of the court’s ruling on their license violation.”
“As we’ve stated clearly over the last several months, DuPont negotiated and signed a contract with a specific set of rights, at the financial terms they preferred, and the rights they licensed did not include making” Optimum GAT, Quarles said in an e-mail on Saturday.
Monsanto announced this week that the Justice Department demanded internal documents related to the company’s soybean business.
Quarles said the company has done nothing wrong and is cooperating with the department, providing the millions of pages of documents it requested.
DuPont spokesman Dan Turner said Friday’s ruling would not change or delay the company’s efforts to commercialize its Optimum GAT seeds, which the company says will be an alternative to Monsanto’s products.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS