Mr. Lucky~” Lots of companies hold lots of plant patents. I would guess that there are well over 100 active patents on corn alone. “
Right ~ there are a lot of “intellectual property” seeds , or proprietary seed market , or what we commonly call: Geneticly Modified (G.M.)seed crops.
The largest GM / intellectual property seed sales are :
#1 Monsanto(US) at 23 % ,
#2 DuPont(US) at 15% ,
#3 Syngenta(Swiss) at 9%,
#7 Bayer Crop (Ger.)at 2%. , etc.
The proprietary seed market accounts for approximately 82 % of the commercial seed market worldwide .
According to these statistics , the US portion of proprietary seed is approximately or over 38% .
A 23% market share is something less than a monopoly.