Indian court turns down PepsiCo’s appeal against revocation of potato patent By Reuters

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<span>© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A customer picks packets of Lay’s potato chips at a shop in Ahmedabad, India, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo</span><br />
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<p>By Mayank Bhardwaj and Sumit Khanna</p>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian court rejected PepsiCo (NASDAQ:) Inc’s appeal against an order that revoked a patent for a potato variety grown exclusively for the New York-based company’s popular Lay’s potato chips.</p>
<p>The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPVFR) Authority in 2021 revoked intellectual protection granted to PepsiCo’s FC5 potato variety, saying that India’s rules do not allow a patent on seed varieties.</p>
<p>The authority removed PepsiCo’s patent cover after Kavitha Kuruganti, a farmers’ rights activist, argued that the company cannot claim a patent over a seed variety.</p>
<p>PepsiCo petitioned the Delhi High Court against the revocation of the patent cover.</p>
<p>In its order dated July 5, Delhi High Court judge Navin Chawla dismissed PepsiCo’s appeal against the authority’s decision.</p>
<p>“We are aware of the order … and are in the process of reviewing the same,” a PepsiCo India spokesperson said in a statement.</p>
<p>The U.S. snacks and drinks maker, which set up its first potato chip plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 seed variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.</p>
<p>PepsiCo has maintained that it exclusively developed the FC5 variety and registered the trait in 2016. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.</p>
<p>In a statement, Kuruganti said: “It is good that the judgement of Justice Navin Chawla upheld the revocation order . . .”</p>
<p>In 2019, PepsiCo sued some Indian farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, accusing growers of infringing its patent. The company also sought more than 10 million rupees ($121,050) each for alleged patent infringement.</p>
<p>Within months, PepsiCo withdrew lawsuits against farmers.</p>
<p>In its order, the Delhi High Court did not uphold accusations of any public interest violation by PepsiCo.</p>
<p>PepsiCo is the second large U.S. company to face patent infringement issues in India.</p>
<p>After a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker <span itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Corporation"><span itemprop="name"> Monsanto </span></span> (NYSE:), now owned by German drugmaker <span itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Corporation"><span itemprop="name"> Bayer AG </span></span> (ETR:), withdrew from some businesses in India.</p>
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