WASHINGTON
A legal battle in Delaware is testing whether major agricultural firms can use patents to block competitors from examining genetic material the companies themselves promised to make public.
Corteva Agriscience is suing Inari Agriculture, a startup that ordered seed samples from a public repository and sequenced them to study Corteva's patented corn modifications. Corteva claims the examination violated its intellectual property rights. The trial is set for this month.
The case exposes a central tension in patent law: the system grants inventors a limited monopoly in exchange for public disclosure. Companies can read patents, study the invention, and build on it. But Corteva is arguing that examining a deposited seed sample—the physical embodiment of a patent's claims—crosses a legal line.
Inari did not sell seed to farmers or grow corn for market. The startup simply acted on a legal requirement Corteva itself accepted. Under U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rules, when companies file patents on genetically modified crops without fully disclosing the genetic details, they must deposit a seed sample with a public repository. Corteva certified to the USPTO that all restrictions on access would be "irrevocably removed" once the patent issued.
Corteva's actual patent filings show why the deposit matters. U.S. Patent No. 8,575,434 describes a genetic modification only by a numeric code: "corn plant comprising the genotype of the corn event DP-004114-3." The patent provides no detail on what was actually modified or how to replicate it. Without the deposited seed, competitors cannot reverse-engineer or build on the innovation—the patent system's stated purpose.
Corteva is one of two companies controlling 85 percent of U.S. corn intellectual property. Bayer and Corteva together dominate the American market. Four companies control more than half of the world's commercial seed market.
Corteva has a history of legal entanglements. The company recently settled a series of lawsuits over anticompetitive practices. Bayer has also faced lawsuits alleging monopolization of the U.S. market for GMO corn seeds, specifically regarding the NK603 trait that resists Roundup.
The Delaware trial will test how strictly courts enforce the disclosure principle at the heart of patent law. If Corteva prevails, companies could effectively use patents to block access to publicly deposited material—neutering the deposit requirement itself. If Inari prevails, the patent system's core bargain remains intact: inventors get monopoly protection only if they let the public see what they've invented.
