Bayer CropScience enforces its Mefenpyr safener patent

Bayer CropScience has achieved partial success in enforcing its patent rights in a Chinese court of law. In its judgement at first instance, the court in Wuxi recently ordered the Chinese company Jiangsu Tian Rong Group Ltd. (Tian Rong) to stop selling the crop protection product Mefenpyr in infringement of patent rights and to pay compensation to Bayer CropScience. “The court’s decision sends a strong signal to Chinese companies, warning them against patent infringements of this kind,” commented Dr. Ralf-Rudiger Jesse, Head of Patents & Licensing at Bayer CropScience. “This case shows our commitment to defending our patents worldwide and to preventing the illegal trade of crop protection products.”

Tian Rong unlawfully produced Mefenpyr, a safener developed by Bayer CropScience, selling the product to Chinese farmers and customers in other Asian countries. In 2008, Bayer CropScience filed a lawsuit against Tian Rong in the Wuxi court to enforce the rights under its Chinese Mefenpyr patent.

Safeners, which are rapidly absorbed by crop plants, are added to herbicides to accelerate their degradation and prevent damage to the plants. Bayer CropScience sells Mefenpyr in mixtures with the foliar herbicide Fenoxaprop-P-ethyl under the brand name Puma Products based on Fenoxaprop-P-ethyl are registered in over 75 countries worldwide including, alongside China, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, France, Australia and India. The substance can be used on wheat, rye, triticale and barley against a wide weed grass spectrum. In the People’s Republic of China, Puma has become the standard for effective weed grass control in cereal crops.