Syngenta announced today that it has sued agrochemical maker Atticus LLC (“Atticus”) for patent infringement.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, alleges, among other things, that Atticus’ Acadia 2 SC, Acadia ESQ, Aquila XL, Artavia 2 SC and Artavia Xcel products each infringe certain Syngenta patents relating to the manufacture of azoxystrobin fungicide.

Atticus’ infringement enables it to unfairly compete in the crop protection market and benefit from significant product development investments made by Syngenta, the original developer of azoxystrobin. The lawsuit seeks to permanently stop Atticus’ infringement of Syngenta’s intellectual property rights, to recover damages adequate to compensate Syngenta for Atticus’ infringement, and to obtain other equitable and monetary relief.

Syngenta has invested significant resources in researching, developing and ultimately commercializing azoxystrobin, a breakthrough fungicidal chemical, which effectively controls a variety of plant diseases and enhances the yield of crops, including cereals — such as wheat and barley, fruits, vegetables, bananas, rice, soybeans, corn, turf and ornamentals. Syngenta has marketed a number of azoxystrobin products, including those under the trade names Abound®, Heritage®, Quadris® and Quilt®.

Syngenta continues making significant investments to develop new products that meet growers’ needs. The stringent regulatory approval process and high cost of research and development for new crop protection chemistries require a major commitment: the average time to bring a new crop protection product to market is up to 11 years and can cost $286 million1.

1 http://www.croplifeamerica.org/news/2017/10/26/cost-of-crop-protection-innovation-increases-to-286-million-per-product