University and two ex-professors reach strawberry settlement
A settlement (pdf) has been reached between two former University of California, Davis professors who were found liable for infringing strawberry seed patents and the University of California regarding its strawberry breeding programme.
The agreement, reached on September 15, states that the two professors must give up $2.5 million in future patent inventor royalties. The settlement was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The university accused the two professors, Douglas Shaw and Kirk Larson, of infringing strawberry varieties that they took from the university upon retiring to start their new business, California Berry Cultivars (CBC).
Both parties decided that their best interests were to settle the litigation, thus avoiding the expense of further litigation. This means that CBC’s counterclaim, which stated that the university tried to patent 168 varieties of strawberries in a single patent to prevent CBC working with the plants, is to be dropped as well.
The settlement also states that CBC must return the breeding materials related to the strawberries.
Originally the case was decided in May 2016 when a jury found that Shaw and Larson wilfully infringed 11 of the university’s patents.
The university also took issue with the two allegedly interfering with its records and with strawberry breeding materials that had not been released to the public.
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