The Des Moines Register reports attorneys for Kinze filed motions asking a federal judge to stop John Deere from trying to access a wide variety of internal documents about the Williamsburg company's planting equipment business, including marketing strategies, sales data and research and development plans.

The month was dominated by coverage of the ongoing lawsuit over John Deere's acquisition of Precision Planting and the major manufacturer's agreement with Ag Leader.

One of the precision markets often identified by dealers as holding the most revenue potential is planter technology. Recent years have seen the debut and development of electric drives, high-speed seed delivery meters and hydraulic down force systems.

Dawn Equipment serves notice to Precision Planting and Ag Leader over patents related to hydraulic down pressure control for row crop planters.

Deere & Co. responded to the Dept. of Justice’s complaint to the Deere’s acquisition of Precision Planting.

John Deere filed a response to the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to block the company’s planned purchase of Precision Planting from the The Climate Corp.

The agreement will provide Ag Leader the technologies and licenses necessary to manufacture and sell the Precision Planting SpeedTube and related technology, including vSet, vDrive and DeltaForce, once the acquisition of Precision Planting is completed.

Talking with a few more precision retailers, there’s not been a consensus on an expected outcome of the U.S. Department of Justice intervening on John Deere’s planned acquisition of Precision Planting. Some forecast a restructuring of the original deal, which would pare down the power position that Deere would assume in the planter technology market should the deal be approved wholesale.