Corteva

In the United States, a legal battle between two seed companies, Corteva and Inari, has highlighted a contradiction in the patent system. Whilst intended to encourage innovation in exchange for the disclosure of inventions, patents can also complicate access to the biological material needed for research and the creation of new varieties. In May 2026, the US Department of Justice intervened to highlight the competition and innovation issues linked to access to patented seeds. However, the dispute will not proceed to trial, as the companies signed an out-of-court settlement on 27 September 2026, the main terms of which remain confidential. A missed opportunity to obtain judicial clarification on the use of patented biological material by a third party.

At first glance, this finding may seem surprising. Only three GMOs obtained through new techniques of genetic modification are currently being cultivated and their harvest commercialised. The many promises of their benefits for health, the environment, and “competitiveness”, as well as the argument that they are already deregulated in many countries around the world, would suggest that these “miracle” products would have been more widely adopted. Clearly, this is not the case.

For many years now, multinationals have been collecting an increasing amount of genetic, proteic sequences and epigenetic informations. They are reducing living organisms to data compiled in digital databases. Using “artificial intelligence” algorithms, they claim to have the tools to determine which genetic modifications will produce a given new characteristic. In a society where genetic modification techniques and patents are intimately linked, these algorithms will above all accelerate the claim to own living organisms.