[1/2]A customer picks packs of Lay’s crisps at a store in Ahmedabad, India, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
NEW DELHI, Jul 8 (Reuters) – An Indian court has rejected PepsiCo Inc’s appeal against an order revoking a patent for a potato variety grown exclusively for the New York-based company’s popular Lay’s chips.
The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPVFR) Authority revoked the intellectual protection of PepsiCo’s FC5 potato variety in 2021, saying Indian rules do not allow seed variety patents.
The authority removed PepsiCo’s patent coverage after Kavitha Kuruganti, a farmer’s rights activist, argued that the company cannot claim a patent on a seed variety.
PepsiCo has filed a petition against the withdrawal of the patent coverage in the Delhi High Court.
In his July 5 order, Delhi High Court Judge Navin Chawla rejected PepsiCo’s appeal against the authority’s decision.
“We are aware of the order… and are reviewing it,” a PepsiCo India spokesperson said in a statement.
The American snack and beverage company, 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 products to the company at a fixed price.
PepsiCo has maintained that it developed the FC5 variety exclusively and registered the trait in 2016. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content needed to make snacks such as potato chips.
In a statement, Kuruganti said: “It is good that Judge Navin Chawla’s verdict upheld the revocation order…”
In 2019, PepsiCo sued some Indian farmers for growing the FC5 potato variety, accusing growers of patent infringement. The company also demanded more than 10 million rupees ($121,050) each for alleged patent infringement.
Within months, PepsiCo dropped lawsuits against farmers.
In its order, the Delhi High Court did not uphold allegations of any public interest violation by PepsiCo.
PepsiCo is the second major US company to face patent infringements in India.
After a lengthy intellectual property dispute, seed producer Monsanto, now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, pulled out of some companies in India.
($1 = 82.61 rupees)
Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj and Sumit Khanna; Edited by Kim Coghill
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Principles of Trust.