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Corteva Agriscience Inc., the Indianapolis-based seed and crop-protection giant, is suing a Massachusetts startup, saying the company has taken Corteva’s patent-protected seeds, made slight genetic modifications, and is preparing to commercialize them under its own name.
Corteva filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware against Inari USA and a sister operation, Inari Belgium. The suit alleges patent infringement, breach of material transfer agreements and infringement of U.S. Plant Protection Certificates.
The lawsuit alleges that Inari deliberately used a third-party agent to obtain protected Corteva seeds, illegally exported the seeds out of the United States, made slight genetic modifications of the biotech traits and is seeking U.S. patents for those modified traits.
The lawsuit seeks to prevent Inari “from continuing its brazen efforts to steal Corteva’s groundbreaking, patent-protected work,” according to the complaint, which runs 198 pages with exhibits.
Inari representatives did not respond to IBJ’s call or email late Wednesday afternoon for a response.
Corteva said one way Inari misappropriated seeds was by misusing seed deposits at the American Type Culture Collection, or ATCC, a not-for-profit organization that collects, stores and distributes standard reference microorganisms, cell lines, seeds and other biologic materials for research purposes.
Corteva said it made these deposits in connection with filing applications to obtain patents covering the protected seeds. The collection organization made the protected seeds available for public inspection but expressly prohibited members of the public from using those seeds for commercial purposes, from transferring them outside their organization,” the complaint said.
“Despite these express prohibitions, Corteva learned in December 2022 that Inari—through an elaborate scheme apparently aimed at concealing its actions—had illegally obtained hundreds of varieties of Corteva’s protected seeds from ATCC and illegally exported them to Belgium for commercial purposes, without Corteva’s knowledge or approval,” the complaint said.
Corteva said Inari has already begun efforts to sell modified seeds in the United States. Inari has already partnered with at least one “test customer,” called 1st Choice Seeds, which is offering “proof of concept” seeds to “at least 1,000 farms in Indiana and seven Eastern states.”
The complaint includes a link to an IBJ story in May about Inari’s efforts to increase crop yields through “unique gene-editing technology.”
Corteva said it filed the suit to protect its deep investments and research. The company said it invests nearly $4 million every day in research and development.
“A single crop protection product takes an average of 13 years to reach market, a biotech trait takes almost 16 years, and a new seed product can take seven years,” the company said in a press release accompanying the lawsuit.
In September of 2021, a Corteva representative participated in a videoconference that included the CEO of Inari USA.
During the meeting, Inari USA revealed that it had already performed development activities to commercialize two of Corteva’s protected “transgenic events,” or the insertion of a particular transgene into a specific location on a chromosome and outlined a product launch plan between 2022 and 2023 that included corn seeds containing Corteva technology.
“At the time, Inari had no business relationship with Corteva that would have allowed Inari to use either of these events,” the complaint said. “However, despite the mention of these two transgenic events, Inari failed to disclose its elaborate scheme of accessing hundreds of Corteva’s protected seeds and having an agent export them outside the United States.”
During the same videoconference, Inari proposed a quid pro quo: Inari would not sell corn seeds containing these two proprietary events without a license if Corteva would collaborate with Inari regarding the use of Inari’s soybean products, the complaint said. Corteva rejected that offer.
Corteva has more than 20,000 employees worldwide, including more than 1,000 on its Zionsville Road campus, about 15 miles northwest of downtown.
The 248-acre campus has been a key player in Indianapolis life sciences and technology circles for more than three decades, much of that time under the name Dow AgroSciences. It has been known as Corteva since its spinoff in 2019 from DowDuPont.
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