Indian Supreme Court reinstates Monsanto GM cotton seed patent
The Supreme Court of India has ruled that biotechnology company Monsanto’s patent for genetically modified cotton seeds is valid and enforceable in the country.
It overturns a Delhi High Court judgment from April 2018 which ruled that the patent was unenforceable, in a dispute with Indian company Nuziveedu Seeds.
Monsanto was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
The decision was welcomed by India’s main farmers’ association, Swabhimani Shetkari Saghtana.
“This is a very good move as most international companies have stopped releasing new technology in the Indian market due to the uncertainty over patent rule,” Ajit Narde, of the farmers’ body, told Reuters.
Narde said the organisation has been demanding access to new technology, as it is important to help Indian farmers compete with rivals overseas.
Monsanto is the owner of Indian patent number 214436, which covers “Methods for transforming plants to express bacillus thuringiensis (BT) deltaendotoxins”.
The cotton seed technology went on to dominate 90% of India’s cotton acreage, according to Reuters.
Monsanto said that the biotech invention contains the infusion of the Bt gene into the cotton genome, which eradicates pests afflicting cotton plants, and that components in the invention fall under microbiological processes and microorganisms, making it patentable.
At the Delhi High Court, Nuziveedu had argued that Monsanto’s invention only included the “nucleic acid sequence” and the process to insert the sequence in plant cells.
“Under the Indian regulatory regime, a plant or seed which has such a nucleic acid sequence containing the Cry2Ab gene cannot be granted a patent in India and is an excluded matter,” said Nuziveedu, adding that section 3(j) of the Patents Act prohibits a patent for plants, including seeds and varieties.
The Delhi High Court will now examine Monsanto’s claims that Indian companies, including Nuziveedu, infringed its patent for the cotton seeds.
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