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April 27, 2019 01:00 pm

PepsiCo Sues Four Indian Farmers For Using Its Patented Lay's Potatoes

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: PepsiCo has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday. Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, grown exclusively for its popular Lay's potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips. The company is seeking more than $142,840 each for alleged patent infringement. "We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn't face this problem ever, as we've mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year's crop," said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi. Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety. PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price. The company said the four farmers could join the group of growers who exclusively grow the FC5 variety for its Lay's potato chips. "PepsiCo India has proposed to amicably settle with the people who were unlawfully using the seeds of its registered variety. PepsiCo has also proposed that they may become part of its collaborative potato farming program," the company spokesman said in a statement. While the spokesman said the farmers can sign an agreement to cultivate other available varieties if they do not wish to grow the FC5 potato variety for PepsiCo, it raises the question of whether farmers should have the right to grow and sell trademarked crops. More generally, it brings up the controversial question: should plants be patented? The original ending of the "Little Shop of Horrors" movie musical has a scene with an agent haggling over the rights to the giant plant. He shouts "We don't have to deal with you. A god-damn vegetable is public domain! You ask our lawyers!"

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