Chemical giant Bayer has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States against Dow Agrosciences; Bayer CropScience claims Dow used seven of its patents without authorisation.

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The company filed the lawsuit in Delaware following a submission by Dow to the USDA for approval of a GM herbicide tolerant soybean for commercialisation under the Dow Enlist brand name. Bayer claims the soybean infringes a number of its glyphosate tolerance patents.

The new claims are an addition to a previous lawsuit, filed in December last year, which asserts Dow Agrosciences’ GM cotton and soybeans infringe Bayer’s herbicide tolerance patents.

Margaret Keating, spokesperson for Bayer, said, "This additional patent infringement complaint filed against Dow AgroSciences serves as another example of our ongoing commitment to enforce our intellectual property rights."

Exponents of transgenic (GM) crops claim the technology is imperative tool in achieving global food security, however, the jealous guarding of ‘intellectual property’ by agribusinesses who hold most of the patents on the crops perturbes many GM detractors.

This is the most recent in a spate of recriminations between large agribusinesses active in the US; it follows a legal spat in October between DuPont and Monsanto, also over an alleged patent infringement and another in August between Syngenta and grain handler Bunge over the latter’s refusal to accept new GM maize at its grain elevators. Bunge said this was over fears of contamination; the new maize has not been authorised for sale in China or the EU.