Monsanto serious about dealing with patent infringement

Saturday, January 5, 2008

The company claimed Beneteau grew, harvested and sold 55 acres of soybeans without a license to use the technology. The federal court has required Beneteau to fork over $8,800 in damages. That works out to $160 per acre for the 55 acres.

The Amherstberg area farmer can count himself lucky that the settlement is $110 an acre less than what Edward Wouters, who farms near Forest in Lambton County, was ordered to pay in June. In that case, the federal courts required Wouters to ante up more than $274 an acre for 392 acres - a total of more than $107,000 - to Monsanto.

Permanent prohibition from using RR soybeans was another of the court’s terms.

So just how does Monsanto find out about the patent infringements?

Although the company conducts annual random audits, it’s usually information from neighbouring farmers or local retailers that reveal possible infringements, explains Trish Jordan, a spokesperson for Monsanto. The company then investigates. If an infringement is found Monsanto usually settles out of court and details of the agreement are not made public. Beneteau, however, was difficult to deal with, she says, “which is part of the reason why we went ahead with the court judgement.”

In any given year, Monsanto deals with about 10 out of court settlements across Canada. In Ontario, it has two other cases heading to the courts. According to the company, these involve Ron and Lawrence Janssens of Wallaceburg, Charles Rivett of Cookstown and Alan Kerkhof of Wallaceburg. Kerkhof is chair of the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board. Given there are 30,000 to 35,000 that use Monsanto technology in Canada, the problem of patent infringement is “very minor,” says Jordan.
BF