According to a verdict filed July 8, 2022, a Delaware jury has found John Deere failed to prove certain Precision Planting products infringed on Deere's patents.
The jury decided against John Deere in two cases of patent infringement John Deere brought against AGCO's Precision Planting SpeedTube and vSet2 products and how their combination with AGCO planters amounted to alleged patent infringement, specifically Deere's ExactEmerge planter technology.
The original complaint was filed over 4 years ago on June 1, 2018, when John Deere claimed that, "when one of Precision Planting’s vSet Products is combined with Precision Planting’s SpeedTube product, the combination infringes Deere’s patents."
The original complaint listed 12 total patent infringements, though only 2 were mentioned in the final verdict.
Back in December 2020, AGCO lost challenges it made in court to invalidate two of Deere's patents involved in the lawsuit. AGCO had argued "aspects of earlier planting machines were known techniques that could be combined to come up with the patented seeder." In response, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled AGCO's arguments to be "simplistic and unpersuasive," and that they fail to account for the differences between machines and that AGCO did not "explain how inevitable problems in combining the earlier know-how would be handled."
At the time, it was reported that Monsanto and Bayer backed AGCO's patent challenges and "pledged to support AGCO in the fight."
2020 Kinze Lawsuit
John Deere had filed a separate lawsuit against Kinze and Ag Leader in December 2020, alleging patent infringement regarding True Speed/SureSpeed technology.
Kinze and Ag Leader later countersued John Deere to invalidate certain patents cited in Deere's suit.
