Corteva competitor Inari must face seed patent lawsuit

Aug 5 (Reuters) - Agriculture technology giant Corteva Agriscience (CTVA.N) can move forward with its lawsuit accusing startup Inari Agriculture of unlawfully copying its patented seeds, according to a ruling made public in Delaware federal court on Monday.

U.S. District Judge John Murphy refused to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that Inari failed to prove at an early stage of the case that its Belgian subsidiary could develop its own genetically modified plants from Corteva's seeds without violating U.S. intellectual property laws.

Spokespeople for Inari did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. A spokesperson for Corteva declined to comment.

Delaware-based Corteva spun off from DowDuPont (DOW.N) in 2019. It sued Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Inari last year, alleging that the competing startup obtained Corteva's protected seed samples from a nonprofit and transferred the seeds to its Belgian branch to exploit them, violating a Corteva patent and other intellectual property rights.

In its dismissal bid, Inari had argued that the nonprofit that provided the seed samples "authorizes unrestricted availability to the public of those seeds" regardless of Corteva's rights. Inari also said that U.S. patent law does not apply to its use of the seeds in Belgium and that its testing of them could not be an infringing act.

Murphy said Inari's arguments relied on assumptions that it still needed to prove.

"Many of Inari's arguments require the assumption that whatever Inari is accused of doing is nothing more than what any member of the public is entitled to do with a deposited seed," Murphy said. "An interesting notion, but is it true?"

The case is Corteva Agriscience LLC v. Inari Agriculture Inc, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, No. 1:23-cv-01059.