November marked the settlement of two major biotechnology patent disputes. In one, Genentech (South San Francisco, CA) agreed to provide the University of California (Berkeley, CA) with $200 million to settle a patent infringement lawsuit involving a recombinant version of human growth hormone (hGH). At issue was whether researchers at Genentech benefited from unauthorized use of recombinant material encoding hGH that had been prepared by UCSF scientists (Nature Biotechnol. 17, 634). The settlement ends a $2.8 billion lawsuit that originated ten years ago, had been heard earlier in federal court, but was pending retrial in January. A quarter of the settlement will go towards building a new research facility at the University of California San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Monsanto (St. Louis, MO) along with its DEKALB Genetics subsidiary (DeKalb, IL) settled several lawsuits with Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) covering several varieties of genetically engineered corn being marketed by all three companies. The corn varieties are engineered with genes encoding insecticidal proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). As part of the agreement, Novartis was granted a license for Bt and Roundup-Ready corn, while Monsanto paid Novartis a fee based on past sales of a Novartis brand of genetically engineered corn.