Monsanto’s Patent Management and Issues

Yeriel Lee

Jordi

Part 1. Company Information

Company at a glance

• Fortune 500 Company

• Headquarters: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

• Products:

- Agricultural and vegetable seeds

- Plant biotechnology traits

- Crop protection chemicals

• Globally

- 21,183 employees

- 404 facilities in 66 countries

• United States:

- 10,277 employees

- 46 facilities in 33 states

Company at a glance

“Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company.

We deliver agricultural products that support farmers all

around the world.”

Sustainable business, or green business, is an enterprise to be that has minimal negative impact on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy

Financial Information – Revenue and R&D Spending

10502

11832

13516

15060

1205 1386 1517 1533

2010 2011 2012 2013

Revenue R&D Spending

( in million)

Competitors – Seed Industry Market Share(2012)

36%

38%

12%

7% 7%

Monsanto

Du Pont EI

Syngenta Agreg

Bayer Ag-Reg

Vilmorin&Cie

Other

Why Monsanto and Du Pont are dominant players in the industry?

1. Patent Protection

2. First Mover Advantage

Key terms regarding Monsanto’s business

GMO Roundup Roundup

Ready

Key terms regarding Monsanto’s business

A genetically modified organism (GMO)

= genetically engineered organism (GEO)

• An organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.

• Recombinant DNA technology: use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes.

Key terms regarding Monsanto’s business

Roundup

• Herbicide Glyphosate that is used to kill weeds without killing plants that farmers grow

• Discovered by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970

• Most used herbicide in the U.S. agriculture sector with 180-185 million pounds applied (2007)

• With its heavy use in agriculture, weed resistance to glyphosate is a growing problem

• Concerns about their effects on humans and the environment persist

Key terms regarding Monsanto’s business

Roundup Ready

• Crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate.

• Allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence herbicide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds, but the development of similar resistance in some weed species is emerging as a costly problem

• Soy was the first "Roundup Ready" crop.

Criticism over Monsanto

Criticism over Monsanto

Part 2. Patent management and issues

1. When farmers purchase a patented seed variety, they sign an agreement that they will not save and replant seeds produced from the seed they buy from Monsanto.

2. Sometimes Monsanto resort lawsuits when they find violation. 145 lawsuits filed since 1997 in the United States. To date, only 9 cases have gone through full trial. In every one of these instances, the jury or court decided in our favor.

Patent Management

• They possessed a threat to a family farm where Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans were growing by wind drift

• ‘Farmers’ they mean is ‘Farmers who are their customer’, not general farmers

Video – How they are killing local farmers

Video

Thank you