EI DuPont de Nemours & Co commonly called Dupont (NYSE:DD) and Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) signed today a series of licensing agreements that would broaden the types of seeds the companies could offer to farmers. The agreements include multi-year royalty-bearing license agreement for Monsanto’s next-generation soybean technologies in Canada and the United States.
E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD) and Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) agreed to end their pending antitrust and patent infringement complaints against each other filed at the federal court in the United States.
Under the agreements signed by the two companies, DuPont (DD) agreed to pay $1.75 billion in royalty to Monsanto Co. (MON) $1.75 billion and the $1 billion jury verdict awarded to the company related to the patent infringement lawsuit against Dupont in August will be dismissed.
E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD) will receive regulatory data rights for the soybean and corn traits previously licensed from Monsanto, which enables the company to develop different types of stacked trait combinations using its own genetic traits. On the other hand, Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) received the rights to access certain Dupont Pioneer disease resistance and corn defoliation patents.
In a statement, Dupont Pioneer president, Paul Schickler said, “This technology exchange helps both companies to expand the range of innovative solutions we can offer farmers, and to do so faster than either of us could alone. The agreements broaden the Pioneer soybean line-up. Importantly, they give us greater flexibility in developing combinations of genetics and traits to help feed an increasingly crowded planet.”
On the other hand, Brett Begemann, president and chief executive officer of Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON)said, “ We’ve always agreed that technological innovation and farmer choice are essential to agriculture, and this agreement endorses the value of our next-generation soybean technologies. This signals a new approach to our companies doing business together, allowing two of the leaders in the industry to focus on bringing the best products while working to advance innovation and long-term opportunity for agriculture.”
The two executives of both companies are happy to end their legal disputes. Schickler said, “We want to focus on the marketplace, and get away from the courtroom.”
Monsanto is the largest seed company worldwide while E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD) is the leading soybean seed provider in the United States in terms of sales. The two companies are competing to become number one in the U.S. market for corn and soybean, which covers 180 million acres.
The shares of Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) were up by more than 4 percent to $103.62 per share on Tuesday afternoon around 2;37 PM.
