Monsanto trips on the I.P. rug

Rhone-Poulenc Agro pulled the intellectual property rug out from under Monsanto Co. when a jury declared invalid a license agreement under which Monsanto's DeKalb Genetics Corp. subsidiary had developed corn tolerant to Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide.

Under the decision, neither Monsanto nor DeKalb has the right to market DeKalb's RoundUp Ready corn, which contains a gene developed by Rhone-Poulenc Agro. The companies are discussing profit-sharing arrangements that would keep RoundUp Ready on the market, but the situation underlines the importance of owning genes in the emerging agbio market...