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High court favors Pioneer U.S. Supreme Court rules plants can be patented. By ANNE FITZGERALD Register Agribusiness Writer 12/11/2001

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday that plants can be patented is a huge victory for Des Moines-based Pioneer Hi-Bred International and other seed companies that were counting on patent protection to help recoup investments in seed research and development.

"It really doesn't change how we do business, but it's a nice reassurance that our research dollars will not go unrewarded," said Dan Cosgrove, Pioneer's corporate counsel.

The ruling stems from a patent infringement lawsuit filed in February 1998 by Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. to stop Farm Advantage Inc. of Clarion and others from reselling Pioneer seed to farmers without permission.

The Clarion supply company argued that plants were not patentable and that Pioneer's claim was unfounded. Federal District Judge Donald O'Brien dismissed that argument, prompting an appeal by Farm Advantage to the federal circuit court of appeals in Washington, D.C.

When that court upheld O'Brien's ruling, Farm Advantage appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court's 6-2 decision says that seeds and plants grown from them can be patented. The ruling upheld the government's practice of patenting plants, which began in the 1980s after a Supreme Court ruling authorized the patenting of bacteria.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor did not take part in the Pioneer case because her family owns stock in DuPont, which owns Pioneer. Justices Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens dissented.

The dispute now returns to the U.S. District Court in Sioux City.

The case was part of a flood of litigation that accompanied the competition among major seed companies in the 1990s to secure their positions in the race to commercialize genetically engineered seed products.

Many of the lawsuits have been resolved, either by the courts or through settlement agreements, but the question at issue in Monday's ruling had remained unresolved.

Experts said the court's ruling would be key in settling a fundamental issue in the so-called patent wars: whether plants can be patented.

Pioneer officials praised the ruling, saying it affirms the patenting of plants, which ensures companies' rights to new seed products that cost millions of dollars to develop.

The ruling "reaffirms the position that anything under the sun is patentable," Pioneer lawyer Cosgrove said. "If there was any doubt before, it's now gone."

Bruce Johnson, a Des Moines attorney representing Farm Advantage, said he was disappointed and surprised by Monday's decision. He added that his client has other defenses that were not part of the issue before the Supreme Court.

Johnson also said he believes other issues regarding the patentability of plants have yet to be decided.

Pioneer and other major agricultural seed companies began seeking plant patents in the 1980s. The trend increased in the 1990s, when the first wave of genetically engineered crops hit the market.

In 1996, Pioneer established a department devoted to patent law to help handle the patenting of the company's germplasm, the genetic material that is the basis for crops such as corn.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001