Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001
Court To Hear Seed Patent Dispute WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to use a dispute over corn seeds to clarify whether some types of plants are eligible for patent protection.
The court said it will hear an Iowa farm supply business' argument that patents cannot be awarded to those who develop new varieties of plants reproduced from seeds.
The supply company, Farm Advantage Inc. of Belmond, Iowa, was sued by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's largest producer of seed corn.
Pioneer alleged that Farm Advantage infringed on its patents for 17 corn seed products by reselling them to farmers. Pioneer sells the products under a limited license that does not allow them to be resold.
Farm Advantage sought to throw out the lawsuit, arguing that the patents were invalid. The company said federal law does not allow patent protection for seeds and plants reproduced from seeds, but that varieties of such plants can be protected under a 1970 law called the Plant Variety Protection Act.
A federal judge in Sioux City, Iowa, ruled against Farm Advantage in 1998, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed in January 2000. ``Neither Congress nor the courts excluded new plant varieties from the patent statute,'' the appeals court said.
In the appeal granted Supreme Court review on Tuesday, Farm Advantage's lawyers said the patent law's protection of '``anything under the sun that is made by man' was not intended to include plants.''
A 1930 law specifies that patent protection can be given to plants produced from grafting or cutting rather than from seeds. But Farm Advantage's lawyers said seed-grown plant varieties ``were not and had never been intended by Congress to be included within the class of things patentable'' under the federal law.
Pioneer's lawyers said the patent law is intended to sweep broadly and that a 1980 Supreme Court decision said that ``living things'' can be patented.
Justice Department lawyers supported Pioneer's argument. Patent law provides broader protection than the Plant Variety Protection Act, and denying patent protection to seed-grown plants would reduce incentives for research and development, government lawyers said.
The case is J.E.M. AG Supply v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, 99-1996.