St. Louis, Missouri
September 2, 2008
Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) and Pilot Grove Cooperative
Elevator, Inc. announced the settlement of a two-year dispute
involving patent infringement. Pilot Grove acknowledged
violating Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seed technology and
accepted responsibility for damages.
Compensation due under the terms of the settlement from Pilot
Grove Coop will remain in the surrounding community to fund
scholarships for local, college- bound FFA and 4-H youth. Pilot
Grove Coop will also develop and adopt a stewardship policy to
avoid future patent infringement and assure sound product
stewardship, and will work with a third-party organization to
provide training for employees.
"We pursue these cases for a number of important reasons,"
states Scott Baucum, Monsanto's Director of U.S. Commercial
Trait Stewardship. "First, we owe it to the hundreds of
thousands of Monsanto farmer customers who are abiding by their
contracts to assure a level playing field, and that some farmers
don't have an unfair advantage. Also, while it's important to
Monsanto to protect our investment, it is extremely important to
the entire agricultural community that we are able to continue
to reinvest in new and better seed technology. For every $10 a
farmer spends on seed, Monsanto invests $1 in research and
development."
"We are glad to have been able to resolve this issue
professionally and in a way that demonstrates the commitment of
both Monsanto and Pilot Grove Coop to agriculture and this
community in a way that minimizes the impact to those
farmer-members who were not involved. We are also glad to be
able to offer seed with traits and to continue to do business
with Monsanto," said Earl Haller of Pilot Grove Coop.
It is relatively rare that Monsanto sues over saved seed. With
approximately 250,000 customers in any given year, it is only a
small fraction that saves seed containing patented traits and
when they do it is largely only related to soybeans. In most of
these situations, we are able to reach a mutually agreeable
settlement without filing suit. During the past 10 years the
vast majority of seed patent infringement claims were settled
without the need for any legal action. Monsanto filed suit
against farmers for seed patent infringement approximately 125
times. Of those 125 lawsuits, all but eight (8) were
successfully settled without the need for a trial; Monsanto
proceeded through trial in the remaining eight, and won each
case.
Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of
technology-based solutions and agricultural products that
improve farm productivity and food quality.
Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and
large-scale farmers to produce more from their land while
conserving more of our world's natural resources such as water
and energy. |
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