Kansas City, May 13: Monsanto on Wednesday filed suit against agrochemicals rival Syngenta AG, claiming a violation of Monsanto's patent on a technique used in producing a popular type of genetically modified corn.
The suit was filed after Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta, the world's biggest agrochemicals company, said it was buying rights to a glyphosate-tolerance technology for treating corn from Bayer CropScience, a unit of Germany's Bayer AG.
Syngenta said it planned to use the technology, known as GA21, to try to loosen Monsanto's grip on the biotech corn market.
But St. Louis-based Monsanto said it holds a patent on the "fundamental technique" used in producing glyphosate-tolerant plants. Glyphosate is a key ingredient used in herbicides and was Monsanto's bread and butter for years through the company's Roundup herbicide until its patent on glyphosate expired in 1999.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, seeks a permanent injunction against Syngenta preventing the commercial sale of any corn using the technology in question.
"The bottom line is Bayer did not have a license for the intellectual property owned by Monsanto, and Syngenta does not have a license either," Monsanto Executive Vice President Carl Casale said in a statement issued Wednesday.
