Corteva and Inari Settle During Jury Trial; Delaware Court Orders Seed Materials Destroyed and Dismisses With Prejudice.

ECF No. 712 in Corteva Agriscience LLC v. Inari Agriculture, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-01059-JFM (D. Del.), is a stipulation and order of dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2), signed by counsel on September 27, 2026, and so ordered on September 28, 2026, by Judge John F. Murphy, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation. The plaintiffs are Corteva Agriscience LLC, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., and Agrigenetics, Inc. The defendants are Inari Agriculture, Inc. and Inari Agriculture NV, a Belgian company. Chad S.C. Stover of Barnes & Thornburg LLP signed for the plaintiffs, and Megan E. Dellinger of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP signed for the defendants. The signature blocks also list Brian S.S. Auerbach and Cameron P. Clark.

How the case ended

The jury trial began September 23, 2026. The court's minute entries record testimony on September 23, 24, and 25. The minute entry for September 28, Jury Trial Day 4, states that the parties had reached a settlement and that the jurors were excused on the record. The stipulation says the parties executed a Confidential Settlement and Release Agreement on September 27, 2026, which becomes effective on entry of the order. The court closed the case on September 28, and the clerk docketed a final report to the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks listing U.S. Patent 8,575,434 (ECF No. 713).

What the order requires

The order says the definitions and terms of the settlement agreement apply to any dispute about enforcing the order, that selected definitions are appended as Appendix A, and that other definitions are not restated, for convenience and confidentiality. The three-page order on the docket does not include Appendix A. Paragraph 2 orders that, within 30 days after entry, Inari destroy, or cause to be destroyed, all Corteva Biological Materials and Restricted Materials in the possession, custody, or control of Inari, its affiliates, or any third party acting on Inari's behalf, including Corteva Germplasm, Corteva Events, Derived Material, Derived Events, seeds, plants, plant parts, tissue cultures, DNA samples, biological materials, and derivatives thereof, as provided in the agreement. Paragraph 3 orders Inari to provide Corteva, within 45 days after entry, a declaration under penalty of perjury under 28 U.S.C. 1746, signed by an authorized officer of each Inari entity, confirming that all such Corteva Biological Materials have been destroyed.

Paragraph 4 retains the court's jurisdiction to enforce the agreement and the order. Paragraph 5, subject to that retained jurisdiction, dismisses with prejudice all claims, counterclaims, cross-claims, defenses, and affirmative defenses asserted in the case. Paragraph 6 provides that each party bears its own litigation expenses, including attorneys' fees, expert fees, and costs.

The case being settled

Corteva filed suit on September 27, 2023. The complaint alleged that Inari obtained hundreds of varieties of Corteva's protected seeds from the American Type Culture Collection, where Corteva had deposited them in connection with its patent applications, and exported them to Belgium for commercial purposes, infringing Corteva's patent rights, violating its plant variety protection certificates, and breaching the collection's prohibition on commercial use. The original complaint asserted U.S. Patent 8,575,434, titled Maize Event DP-004114-3 and Methods for Detection Thereof. The second amended complaint, filed in redacted form on October 15, 2024, also asserted U.S. Patents 7,956,246, 8,283,522, 8,680,363, and 9,695,441. These were allegations.

Before trial, the court issued several summary judgment memoranda. In a September 3, 2026 memorandum (ECF No. 641), it granted Inari summary judgment of no induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. 271(b), reasoning that the collection's transfers of deposited seeds to Inari were not sales within the meaning of section 271(a), in part because neither the collection nor Inari took title to the seeds. In the same memorandum, it denied Inari's motions on Corteva's plant variety protection counts, on its export counts under section 271(f)(2), where it rejected the argument that a seed cannot be a component of a patented plant, on its remaining section 271(a) counts, and on legal estoppel, and it granted as conceded Inari's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement under section 271(a) of the '522, '363, and '441 patents. On September 21, the court approved a stipulated partial dismissal of certain infringement claims, invalidity counterclaims, and affirmative defenses, and on September 22 it denied Inari's motion for reconsideration of its rulings on exhaustion. The settlement ends the case without appellate review of those rulings.

What to watch next

Counting from entry of the order on September 28, the destruction deadline falls on October 28, 2026, and the declaration is due to Corteva by November 12, 2026. The order directs the declaration to Corteva, not to the court, so it may not appear on the docket. The case is closed. A later filing could come in an enforcement dispute under the jurisdiction the court retained.