Syngenta v. Willowood — Patents

The Federal Circuit held that infringement under 35 U.S.C. 271(g) for importing products made by a patented process does not require a single entity to perform every step of that process.

Global supply chains routinely split a manufacturing process across several companies and countries. That reality collided with U.S. patent law in Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC v. Willowood, LLC, 944 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2019), where the Federal Circuit decided, for the first time, whether the “single-entity” rule that governs direct infringement also limits liability for importing products made by a patented process. Writing for the panel, Judge Jimmie Reyna held that it does not. Under 35 U.S.C. Section 271(g), what matters is whether the imported product was made by the patented process — not whether one actor performed every step. The decision closed a potential loophole that would have let importers dodge process patents by dividing the work.

At a glance

Case: Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC v. Willowood, LLC, No. 2018-1614, 944 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 18, 2019), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; opinion by Judge Reyna, joined by Judges Taranto and Stoll.
Posture: Cross-appeals after a jury and bench rulings on patent and copyright claims concerning the fungicide azoxystrobin; the panel affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.
Holding: Liability under Section 271(g) does not require a single entity to perform all steps of a patented process; the statute focuses on the imported product made by that process.
Significance: Confirmed that process-patent owners can reach imported goods even when the patented method is carried out by multiple, divided actors abroad.

Syngenta makes and sells azoxystrobin, a widely used agricultural fungicide, and holds patents on the compound and on processes for manufacturing it. Willowood, including a Hong Kong entity and its U.S. affiliates, sourced azoxystrobin abroad and imported it for sale in the United States. Syngenta sued in North Carolina, asserting both patent infringement and copyright infringement of its detailed product labels. The appeal raised two issues of national importance: the reach of Section 271(g) and the interplay between copyright and pesticide-registration law.

The single-entity question under Section 271(g)

The Patent Act’s general direct-infringement provision, Section 271(a), has been read — through cases like Akamai Technologies v. Limelight Networks — to require that a single entity perform or direct-and-control all steps of a claimed method before there is liability for practicing that method in the United States. Willowood argued that the same single-entity requirement should govern Section 271(g), so that importing azoxystrobin made by a multi-step patented process would not infringe unless one entity had performed every step of that process abroad.

The Federal Circuit rejected the analogy. The text and purpose of Section 271(g), Judge Reyna explained, differ fundamentally from Section 271(a). Section 271(a) addresses the act of practicing a patented invention within the United States, which is why courts ask who performed the steps. Section 271(g), by contrast, attaches liability to the act of importing, selling, or using a product “made by” a patented process. The operative question is about the product and how it was made — not about the identity or unity of the actors who made it. Reading a single-entity requirement into Section 271(g) would graft a limitation that the statute’s product-focused language does not support and would let importers escape liability simply by dividing a process among affiliates. The court therefore vacated the district court’s judgment of non-infringement on the asserted process patent and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the product-focused standard.

The compound patent and the importation framework

Section 271(g) exists precisely to close the gap that would otherwise let foreign manufacturing defeat U.S. process patents. Before it was enacted, a process patent could be evaded by performing the patented method abroad and importing the resulting product. The provision extends protection to those downstream acts — importation, sale, and use in the United States — subject to statutory limits, such as exceptions for products that are materially changed by subsequent processes or that become trivial components of another product. Syngenta reinforces that the statute should be applied according to its terms, keeping the analysis trained on whether the imported product was in fact made by the patented process.

Copyright, FIFRA, and the product labels

The case also tested how copyright interacts with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Generic “me-too” pesticide registrants may rely on an existing registered product’s data and labeling. The district court had treated FIFRA as effectively requiring Willowood to copy Syngenta’s copyrighted label, and on that basis disposed of the copyright claims. The Federal Circuit vacated that ruling. FIFRA, the panel observed, “does not, on its face, require a me-too registrant to copy the label” of a registered product, so the district court had not adequately shown a genuine conflict between FIFRA and the Copyright Act. The court remanded for a proper analysis of whether any such conflict actually exists before copyright liability could be resolved.

Open questions

How far does the product-focused reading extend? Syngenta settles that no single entity need perform all steps, but the precise contours of proving a product was “made by” a multi-actor process remain to be developed.
Where are the limits of Section 271(g)? The statutory carve-outs for materially changed products and trivial components leave room for fact-intensive disputes in complex supply chains.
How will the FIFRA-copyright conflict resolve? On remand, courts must decide whether pesticide-registration law ever truly compels copying a competitor’s copyrighted label.

Implications

Process patents reach divided foreign manufacturing. Importers cannot escape Section 271(g) by splitting a patented process among multiple entities or countries.
Focus on the product, not the actors. Liability turns on whether the imported product was made by the patented process, a different inquiry from direct-infringement single-entity rules.
Audit overseas supply chains. Companies importing goods should confirm that upstream manufacturing does not practice a U.S.-patented process, even if no single supplier performs all steps.
Do not assume FIFRA licenses copying. Generic registrants should not treat pesticide-registration requirements as automatic permission to copy a rival’s copyrighted labeling.
Plead both patent and copyright theories. As Syngenta did, rightsholders can combine process-patent and label-copyright claims to protect imported chemical products.

Frequently asked questions

What does 35 U.S.C. 271(g) cover? Section 271(g) makes it an act of infringement to import into the United States, or to sell or use within the United States, a product made abroad by a process patented in the United States. It extends U.S. process-patent protection to goods manufactured overseas and then brought into the country.

What was the key holding in Syngenta v. Willowood? The Federal Circuit held, as a matter of first impression, that liability under Section 271(g) does not require a single entity to perform all steps of the patented process. Unlike direct infringement under Section 271(a), the focus of 271(g) is the imported product made by the process, not who carried out each step.

Why does the single-entity question matter for global supply chains? Manufacturers often split a patented process across multiple companies and countries. If a single-entity rule applied to 271(g), importers could evade liability by dividing the steps. The Federal Circuit’s ruling prevents that workaround by focusing on whether the imported product was made by the patented process.