Syngenta, Dömmen Come To Agreement On Multi-Species Liners

Although Dümmen USA received a utility patent a year ago for its Confetti Garden multi-species liners, it has come to terms with Syngenta Flowers on a licensing agreement so Syngenta can continue to produce Kwik Kombos.

Syngenta Flowers has entered into a licensing agreement with Dümmen USA to produce and sell liners that have two or more unrooted cuttings from different plant species rooted together.

Dümmen received a utility patent last January from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its Confetti Garden multi-species liners, meaning companies like Syngenta that produce and sell liners with multiple species must be licensed by Dümmen. Now that Syngenta has come to terms with Dümmen, it will pay Dümmen a royalty fee to produce and sell the Kwik Kombos it introduced in 2009.

“The negotiations with Syngenta were quite long, but in the end I think we came together to a very acceptable royalty fee,” says Dümmen’s Perry Wismans.

Liz Hunt, Syngenta’s senior marketing manager, is pleased growers will be able to continue producing and selling Kwik Kombos without paying a royalty to Dümmen themselves.

“Syngenta Kwik Kombos are very popular with customers,” Hunt says. “To continue to build on their growing popularity, Syngenta plans to introduce 10 new flower combinations at the California [Spring] Trials in March.”

Syngenta is not the first company to enter into a licensing agreement with Dümmen. Ball Horticultural Co. has also signed an agreement with Dümmen. But because Selecta developed the Trixi 2.0 process, Ball is not rooting multiple cuttings together in the Dümmen system.

In the Trixi 2.0 process, individual cuttings are rooted together before being moved into a tray that fuses the cuttings together like a battery pack.

Learn more about Kwik Kombos at SyngentaFlowersInc.com. Learn more about Dümmen’s Confetti Garden program at www.confetti-garden.com.