A high-stakes legal battle over who controls the genetic building blocks of tomorrow’s corn and soybean varieties has come to an end, with Indianapolis-based Corteva Inc. and agricultural technology startup Inari Agriculture reaching a settlement just days after a federal trial began.
The agreement, announced Monday, Sept. 28, resolves a lawsuit Corteva filed in September 2023 accusing Inari of improperly obtaining its patented seed materials, genetically modifying them, and seeking to commercialize the resulting products.
The settlement carries significant implications for seed research, biotechnology, intellectual property rights, and the future development of improved crop genetics — particularly as agricultural companies increasingly rely on advanced breeding and gene-editing technologies to develop products for farmers.
Under the agreement, Inari must destroy Corteva biological materials it obtained from seed depositories, along with materials developed from those deposits. Inari also must assign to Corteva the intellectual property associated with its edited versions of Corteva’s patented genetic events.
The companies further agreed to negotiate certain licensing arrangements, although financial terms and other provisions of the settlement remain confidential.
The settlement was reached after the trial began Sept. 23 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The companies jointly asked the court late Sunday to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the claims cannot be refiled.
Neither company disclosed financial terms or the potential scope of the licensing arrangements.
Dispute centered on access to protected seed genetics
At the heart of the dispute was a fundamental question for the seed industry: When a company makes patented biological material available for public inspection as part of the patent process, how far can another company go in using that material to develop competing products?
Corteva alleged that Inari crossed that line by obtaining hundreds of varieties of its protected seeds through a third-party biological repository and using them for commercial research without authorization.
According to Corteva’s original 2023 complaint, the company discovered in December 2022 that Inari had obtained hundreds of its protected seed varieties from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), a nonprofit organization that collects, preserves, and distributes biological materials for research purposes.
Corteva had deposited the seeds with ATCC in connection with patent applications covering its proprietary seed genetics.
The deposits allowed public inspection as part of the patent process, but Corteva maintained that the repository’s terms expressly prohibited commercial use of the materials and their transfer outside the recipient’s organization.
Corteva alleged that Inari improperly obtained the seeds, exported them to Belgium, and used them for commercial purposes without its knowledge or approval.
The company further accused Inari of making genetic modifications to its protected materials and preparing to commercialize the resulting products.
Inari, which has operations in West Lafayette at Purdue Research Park and in Ghent, Belgium, denied the allegations and argued that the seeds had been made publicly available without restriction through the patent process. The startup also challenged the validity of Corteva’s patents.
The settlement ends the dispute without a publicly disclosed financial resolution or a trial verdict on the underlying allegations.
Seed deposits and intellectual property protections
In announcing the agreement, Corteva and Inari emphasized the broader importance of intellectual property protections in agricultural research and development.
The companies said global patent and plant variety protection systems help promote continued investment, competition, and collaboration in developing improved seed products that benefit farmers.
They also underscored the role of patent depositories and the procedures governing access to biological materials.
The companies said the court’s rulings in the case reinforce applicable rights involving seed deposits and agreed that patent laws, other applicable laws, and contractual restrictions governing deposited materials must be followed.
For the agricultural industry, those protections are central to the economics of developing new seed products. Developing improved corn and soybean genetics requires substantial investment in research, breeding, testing, and regulatory compliance, often over many years.
Patent protections and licensing arrangements provide companies with mechanisms to protect their research investments while potentially allowing other businesses to access and build upon patented technologies through authorized agreements.
The settlement’s requirement that Inari destroy the disputed materials and assign the intellectual property associated with its edited versions to Corteva establishes specific obligations concerning the genetic materials at the center of this dispute.
The companies’ agreement to negotiate licensing arrangements also leaves open the possibility of future authorized commercial relationships, although neither party has disclosed what technologies or products those negotiations might cover.
What the settlement means for farmers
For farmers, the dispute highlights the increasingly important role intellectual property plays in determining how new crop genetics are developed, commercialized, and ultimately made available through the seed marketplace.
Seed companies are investing heavily in technologies designed to improve crop performance, develop new traits, and accelerate the introduction of improved genetics.
Those investments are intended to deliver products that can help farmers address production challenges, including disease pressure, changing weather conditions, and the need to improve productivity.
At the same time, disputes over access to genetic materials and patent rights can influence competition and the ability of agricultural technology companies to bring new products to market.
The Corteva-Inari settlement does not establish a public financial award or resolve every potential question surrounding seed patents and gene editing. Its terms, however, specifically address the disputed biological materials, ownership of associated intellectual property, and potential licensing arrangements between the companies.
The case also illustrates the importance of understanding the distinction between access to biological materials for public inspection or authorized research and permission to use those materials for commercial development.
For seed companies, researchers, and biotechnology startups, the dispute underscores the legal and contractual considerations involved in accessing patented plant genetics through biological repositories.
For farmers, the outcome is part of a larger debate over how intellectual property protections, competition, and investment in agricultural innovation shape the seed products available in the years ahead.
A significant development for Indianapolis-based Corteva
The settlement comes as Corteva prepares for a major corporate restructuring that will separate its seed and crop protection businesses.
Under the planned separation, Corteva’s crop protection business will retain the Corteva name, while its seed business will operate as Vylor Inc. The split is scheduled to be completed Friday, Oct. 2.
Corteva will remain headquartered in Indianapolis, while Vylor will be based at the company’s existing campus in Johnston, Iowa.
The company employs more than 22,000 people worldwide, including approximately 2,000 in Indiana, with roughly 1,500 employees at its Indianapolis-area headquarters.
Corteva became an independent publicly traded company in 2019 following the separation of DowDuPont’s agriculture division.
As the company moves toward its planned separation, the settlement closes a major legal dispute involving the protection of its seed genetics and proprietary research.
For the broader agricultural industry, the case reinforces a central issue facing modern seed development: How companies protect the intellectual property behind new crop technologies while allowing research, competition, and collaboration to continue.
