Agricultural Sciences and Technology

In Depth

Every agtech breakthrough starts with a question: What if?

At Cooley, we turn “what if” into “what’s next” – navigating the legal, scientific and commercial frontiers that define tomorrow’s food and agriculture landscape.

Our multidisciplinary, global platform features lawyers with decades of experience in the agricultural biotechnology, microbial engineering, microbiome, and food, animal and plant sciences industries. Our clients rely on our innovative legal guidance, deep industry knowledge and practical strategies fit to their specific needs.

We collaborate seamlessly across related practice areas, including intellectual property, litigation, FDA/regulatory, licensing, strategic transactions and collaborations, and venture financing.

We help our clients propel to the next level through unparalleled access to one of the largest and most influential networks of leading venture capitalists, financial institutions and other strategic partners in the sector.

Our clients include:

• Leading agricultural companies, both established and startup, utilizing next-generation genomic engineering techniques (CRISPR, base editing, RNAi silencing, TALENS, etc.) to bring new traits and improved germplasm to market
• Market leaders in developing agronomic, horticultural and arboricultural transgenic crops
• Companies providing improved agronomic practices
• Clients utilizing sophisticated genetic tools and algorithms to push the boundaries of plant breeding
• High-tech precision agricultural clients engaged in utilizing the most advanced technology to monitor crops and increase yield (e.g., predictive crop modeling, remote sensing and unmanned aerial vehicle data gathering)
• Companies at the forefront of developing plant-enhancing microbial compositions that can serve as alternatives to traditional synthetic compounds in agricultural applications
• Industry pioneers in the microbiome revolution, with technology that spans application, from food compositions to human health
• Innovative biofuel companies, including those utilizing transgenic yeast or algae
• Pioneering industrial microbiology companies making next-generation products via microbial engineering
• Cutting-edge companies developing new plant extracts, extraction processes and extract formulations and their uses in treating disease and improving nutrition
• Companies developing new and improved agrochemical formulations
• Leading innovators in traditional plant breeding
• Investors backing game-changing technologies in the natural foods sector

Our capabilities

Corporate

Cooley has played an instrumental role in the growth of top companies across industries. We’re counsel to agricultural startup companies involved in some of the largest venture-backed, agricultural-sector fundraising rounds of the past several years. Our market-leading corporate partnering and licensing practice group has experience steering thousands of transactions across various technologies and stages of product development. We are the #1 most active law firm for VC financings and VC-backed companies in the US and globally (PitchBook, 2020 to present), the most active law firm for technology and life sciences initial public offerings (IPOs) for the past decade (Deal Point Data), and a top law firm for M&A deals (Bloomberg). Amid a landscape increasingly shaped by evolving laws and regulations, our team has the depth of experience necessary to help our clients navigate the ever-changing rules of the agtech marketplace.

Intellectual property

With 150+ IP lawyers across the US and UK, Cooley has one of the largest dedicated IP practice groups of any Am Law 50 firm. As a fully integrated, full-service practice, we provide prosecution and counseling services that allow our clients to gain the most value from their IP and represent our clients in complex infringement suits where core products and brands are at stake. Our global trademark team has experience representing clients’ trademark, copyright and advertising interests in virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Notably, Cooley has one of the largest life sciences patent teams in the US, with a dedicated agricultural sciences group comprised of patent lawyers and professionals with PhDs and technical knowledge across all the pertinent areas in the plant science, food science, agrochemical and agbiotech fields. Cooley also has significant experience litigating IP cases involving agricultural technology, including proprietary vegetable varieties and genomic engineering tools utilized to produce gene-edited crops. Our patent team has performed on 1,000+ investor-side and company-side IP due diligence reviews in high-value financings, M&A deals, capital markets offerings and other transactions.

Litigation

Cooley’s litigation team includes lawyers with decades of first-chair trial experience, former judicial clerks and litigation support professionals with deep discovery and case management experience. We represent leading companies and executives in an array of business disputes, including bet-the-company cases. Our team has litigated cases involving agricultural technology, including proprietary vegetable varieties and genomic engineering tools utilized to produce gene-edited crops. With our culture of collaboration and efficiency – and our willingness to take tough cases to trial – we have litigated in a variety of venues, including federal and state courts nationwide, a spectrum of administrative tribunals and international arbitral forums, and English courts. And while our team is led by skilled trial lawyers, we appreciate that litigation, and ultimately trial, is not always the best answer. To this end, we offer a range of pre-litigation counseling and alternative dispute resolution capability and experience.

Regulatory

Cooley’s lawyers counsel US and foreign companies on compliance with US laws and regulations that govern the cross-border movement of goods, services and technology and affect the way US companies conduct business overseas. We regularly represent companies in regulatory and legislative matters before federal and state agencies and provide regulatory compliance advice on international, federal, state and local employment and labor laws –including affirmative action, discrimination, wage and hour, health and safety, unions and collective bargaining, and compensation and benefits. Our CooleyREG platform provides clients with federal public policy insights and regulatory strategies to make informed business decisions. In addition, Cooley’s dedicated FDA team counsels clients on pre-approval and commercial strategies and compliance matters. We also have a team of lawyers with significant EU regulatory experience to advise on international matters.

Representative matters

• Advised AgroSpheres on its $22 million Series B financing and led IP due diligence in connection with the round
• Represented Decibel Bio, a plant biotechnology company building the world’s first crop epigenetic platform, on its $12 million financing round
• Represented Evolutionary Genomics in its partnership with Dole Food Company to develop and commercialize banana plant varieties resistant to a fungus that threatens to devastate the banana industry
• Advised Jord BioScience on its $7 million Series B financing round, including IP due diligence in connection with the deal
• Represent Native Microbials, a pioneer in the emerging science of endomicrobial ecology for raising healthier farm animals and livestock, in ongoing patent counseling and prosecution work to build its global patent portfolio; also advised the company on its 2020 $46 million Series B financing
• Serve as primary IP counsel to Nobell Foods since its founding, helping the company protect its innovative contributions aimed at making the world’s food
  systems more humane and sustainable by utilizing the power of plants to reimagine the world’s food supply and produce cheese from plant-derived dairy proteins; the company completed a $75 million Series B round in 2021 to help bring its vision to the world
• Represent Pivot Bio since its inception and work closely with the company on corporate and financing activity, commercial transactions, and the development and implementation of a market-leading IP portfolio; advised the company on its $430 million Series D financing
• Handle patent prosecution and counseling for Provivi, an emerging agricultural company with a vision to change the way the world controls insect pests; advised the company on its 2020 $45.5 million Series C-2 financing
• Advised Sentera, a leading provider of remote imagery solutions for agriculture, on its acquisition by John Deere
• Represent Vilmorin, Vilmorin North America, Clause and AgReliant Genetics in matters of patent procurement and IP strategy and enforcement; represented Vilmorin North America in patent litigation concerning a proprietary vegetable variety
• Advised Vital Farms, a certified B Corporation and Delaware public benefit corporation that offers a range of ethically produced pasture-raised food products nationwide, on its $235.4 million initial public offering