Why We're Suing DuPont

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Timeline of DuPont's Introduction of and Stated Plans for Optimum® GAT® Technology

Press Releases

Monsanto Challenges Unauthorized Use of Roundup Ready® Technology by DuPont
(May 5, 2009)

Monsanto Asserts DuPont Is Using Smokescreen to Obscure Problems With Its Failed Optimum® GAT® Product (June 16, 2009)

Features

Brett Begemann talks to NAFB about the DuPont Lawsuit
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(Duration: 2:47, 1.27MB)

DuPont first announced the Optimum GAT technology in 2006, indicating it would combine in a single seed product ALS (acetolactate synthase) herbicide tolerance with DuPont’s own glyphosate tolerance trait. But over the past few years, the story has changed.

March 2, 2006
“DuPont expects the Optimum GAT trait to receive full U.S. registration for use in soybeans and corn as early as 2009.”
Source: DuPont Press Release
March 16, 2006
Pioneer’s President said, “GAT is really a more effective glyphosate tolerant product. It has versatile modes of action, it has full spectrum weed control without the threat of plant injury, and it's got greater yield potential than those products that we are seeing in the marketplace today.”
Source: Farm and Ranch Guide, quoting Dean Oestrich, President of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
Shortly thereafter
“DuPont said it will gradually retire its Roundup Ready varieties and replace them with Optimum GAT. ‘Almost all herbicide resistant soybean varieties currently carry the Roundup Ready gene. With the commercialization of Optimum GAT, we hope to capture some of the Roundup Ready market,’ DuPont's communications director Doyle Karr told FoodNavigator-USA.com.”
Source: FoodNavigator-USA.com, 2006
June 14, 2006
DuPont informed investors that the Optimum GAT soy trait could mean “greater than $200 million in additional revenue.”
Source: Analyst presentation by John Bedbrook, DuPont Vice President, Research and Development, dated June 14, 2006
November 28, 2006
“[O]n track for commercialization of soybean products containing the trait by 2009.”
Source: DuPont Press Release
April 20, 2007
Bart Baudler, Pioneer’s business lead to GreenLeaf Genetics and global Optimum GAT strategy lead said: “We know through our tests that it is a superior glyphosate gene in both corn and soybeans. It eliminates the yield drag in soybeans and has the ability to stand up to even greater rates of glyphosate and less likely to have injury with glyphosate application.”
Source: Indiana AgriNews, dated April 20, 2007
June 13, 2007
“We are especially excited about our Optimum GAT trait which is on track to enable us to introduce herbicide-tolerant soybeans in 2009.”
Source: Remarks by Chad Holliday as prepared for delivery before The Chief Executives’ Club of Boston
July 2, 2007
“This keeps us on track for commercial introduction of the Optimum GAT trait in soybeans in 2009.”
Source: Pioneer Press Release
October 17, 2007
“DuPont is on track for commercial introduction of the Optimum GAT trait in soybeans by 2009, pending regulatory approval.”
Source: DuPont Press Release
July 17, 2008
“DuPont today announced that it has received United States regulatory approval of its proprietary herbicide tolerance trait, the Optimum GAT trait in soybeans.”
Source: DuPont Press Release
Yet on the same date
DuPont said that “DuPont is planning demonstration plots in 2009 and 2010 and will introduce commercial soybean varieties with the Optimum GAT trait in 2011.”
Source: DuPont Press Release
January 2009
Just more than 1 minute into a Pioneer video, Pioneer’s soybean research director said the Optimum GAT technology posed an “unacceptable risk to farmers” and they planned to stack the technology with Roundup Ready.
Source: DuPont/Pioneer DVD
January 28, 2009
DuPont announced that it plans to commercialize in 2011 a soybean product that combines the Optimum GAT technology with Monsanto’s patented, first generation Roundup Ready trait.
Source: Pioneer presentation at the Southern Coordinating Committee meeting in Alabama
February 6, 2009
GreenLeaf Genetics LLC, an affiliate of Pioneer, reported that “Pioneer is providing communication materials to its field sales employees and reps about how Pioneer is combining its proprietary Optimum® GAT® trait with the Roundup Ready® trait” in soybeans.
March 10, 2009
DuPont appears to have abandoned the Optimum GAT trait in soybeans as a stand-alone trait. DuPont’s pipeline chart refers to only one Optimum GAT soybean product (See Slide 24, Presentation by Paul Schickler, President of Pioneer at the Credit Suisse Global Ag Productivity Conference on March 10, 2009).

In a footnote on Slide 24 of that presentation, DuPont refers to the sole Optimum GAT soy product now being presented as “Optimum GAT/RR.”
Source: DuPont Investor Presentation
April 7, 2009
Bloomberg news quoted a Pioneer spokesman admitting that “Optimum GAT wasn’t meeting our standards for glyphosate tolerance by itself.”
Source: Bloomberg news article