Leading food and snack company ‘PepsiCo’ suffered a heavy blow in India. The South Asian country has revoked a patent for a potato variety grown only for PepsiCo Inc’s popular Lay’s potato chips.
According to an order issued on Friday by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPVFR) Authority, the New York-based multinational food company has been arguing from the beginning that they have the full rights to the potato bend used for making Lay’s chips, as they have full rights and that no other farmer (except those under contract) can cultivate them.
However, the PPVFR ruled that unless there were restrictions, it would not be possible to fully detain the farmers and the law would not allow it. To this end, the patent rights registration certificate previously issued to the Company was revoked.
Kavitha Kuruganti, who filed the petition on behalf of the farmers, wants PPVFR to stop food companies from violating ‘farmers’ freedom’. The PPVFR Authority agreed with Kuruganti’s contention that Pepsi cannot claim a patent over a seed variety.
A PepsiCo India spokesman said: “We are aware of the order passed by the PPVFR Authority and are in the process of reviewing the same.” PepsiCo has maintained that it developed the FC5 variety of potato, and registered the trait in 2016.
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