Rijk Zwaan has won a long-running infringement case against Italian company Agriseed, after the latter was accused of illegally reproducing the lettuce variety Ballerina RZ.
After finding in favour of the Dutch group, the court of Milan ordered Agriseeds to pay Rijk Zwaan €205,701, plus re-evaluation, interests and legal costs.
The vegetable seed group has been fighting the alleged infringement of Ballerina RZ since 2005, when sales representatives from Rijk Zwaan Italia noticed a similar-looking variety in the market: Criolla, sold by Agriseeds.
According to the Netherlands-based company, it suspected that Ballerina, which is protected, was being reproduced without permission and sold under a different name. After Rijk Zwaan’s own DNA tests confirmed the suspicion, the company initiated legal proceedings against Agriseeds on 23 June 2006.
In January 2011, the Italian court decided that Agriseeds had indeed infringed Rijk Zwaan’s rights, and the company was entitled to damages.
During the subsequent case to determine damages, Agriseeds was deemed to have made an unjustified profit of €205,701 by selling Criolla seeds. On 25 October 2012, the court ultimately ordered Agriseeds to return these profits to Rijk Zwaan, increased of monetary re-evaluation, interests, legal costs and costs of the court experts involved.
Rijk Zwaan lawyer Marian Suelmann said that she was very happy with the result, particularly given the apparent rise in the number of illegal vegetable reproductions.
'Cases like this are undoubtedly complicated and time-consuming, but this example shows that fighting infringement in court can indeed be successful,' she explained. 'We have a common goal in protecting plant breeders’ rights, to ensure that seed companies are rewarded for their investments, which in turn are necessary in order to continue developing new and improved plant varieties.'
