Context: In 2023, Corteva Agriscience sued Inari Agriculture in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware over one patent on seed technology. A year later, it amended its complaint to throw in four more patents as well as hundreds of plant variety protection (PVP) certificates. A trial is scheduled for September 2026, and the current procedural juncture is summary judgment.
What’s new: On Monday (May 11, 2026), the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ-ATR) filed a Statement of Interest on behalf of the United States (federal government) that formally sides with neither party but supports the defendant with respect to authorized use of a patented invention for the purpose of incremental innovation (DOJ-ATR press release; contains link to actual filing). The DOJ-ATR argues that to strike the balance of patent law, certain acts must not be viewed as infringing.
Direct impact: If the district court agreed with the DOJ, summary judgment of non-infringement of the asserted patents to the extent that the defendant’s use of the patented inventions served research purposes would likely be the net dispositive effect. Courts take note of such statements, but they are merely persuasive authority. The DOJ’s filing does not address any PVP issues as there is a research exemption in the PVP Act.1
Wider ramifications: This litigation is considered a landmark case for defining the boundaries of patent protection on seeds, and the DOJ sides particularly with small businesses and farmers. As discussed below, there are aspects that go beyond the field of agricultural innovation:
- The DOJ-ATR’s filings in various digital patent cases have been consistently pro-patentee (April 8, 2026 ip fray article), particularly on such questions as access to injunctive relief over standard-essential patents (SEPs) or patents that are arguably SEPs. Below we will explain why there is zero contradiction here — and no need for concern over the DOJ-ATR wavering in its support of SEP holders.
- There is no antitrust or other competition issue in the case at hand. It is purely about patent law, which is why intuitively the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)2 and/or United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) should have made such a submission. Below we will explain why of all parts of the Trump Administration the DOJ-ATR was the right choice, even if at first sight it may appear odd.3
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- 7 U.S.C. § 2544: “The use and reproduction of a protected variety for plant breeding or other bona fide research shall not constitute an infringement of the protection provided under this chapter.” The DOJ’s position on how to treat incremental innovation by plant breeders under patent law reinforces the policy choice that Congress made in the PVP Act (which doesn’t help the right holder here) and seeks to import that concept into patent law based on the need to strike a balance between the rights of an original innovator and those of incremental innovators — and the need for healthy competition. ↩︎
- About half of the current DOJ-ATR’s filings in patent-related cases were in fact joined by the USPTO. ↩︎
- In the other patent cases in which the current DOJ-ATR made submissions, there were formal or at least foreseeable antitrust-related claims or defenses. Not so here. ↩︎
- The USPTO can defend its own agency decisions, such as in the Federal Circuit. ↩︎
- In FTC v. Qualcomm, the two U.S. antitrust agencies were even taking contradictory positions. ↩︎