Cosmic Crisp & Phytelligence Pt 1
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Last week, we spoke with a WSU spokesman about the pending lawsuits between the university and Phytelligence over propagation and selling of Cosmic Crisp root stock.
Phytelligence CEO Ken Hunt says WSU's claim they have an
agreement to propagate Cosmic Crips, but not sell until they have a license is true, BUT ...
HUNT ... "You know, the issue isn't really that at all. The issue is that we actually have a signed license that we exercised to actually receive that commercial license to commercially propagate Cosmic Crisp. And the expectation was that we would get that license from either WSU or from its agent, and in this case the agent is PBM."
Hunt says they're still waiting ...
HUNT ... "You know, the issue is really more about we exercised that option and we have not yet, you know, received the license after exercising that option so that we could commercially propagate it."
But since the suits were filed, Hunt says there appears to be some confusion about the sale of trees ...
HUNT ... "So, this is really the rub, I think, of some of the confusion that I think is surprising given the number of conversations that we've had. So, there were no trees sold to Evans' Fruit."
Hunt says the transaction was never completed, so they hope this can all be worked out ...
HUNT ... "We love Washington State University. In our brain, this is a very isolated incident. We have a great relationship with the rest of the university and we're certainly looking forward to resolving all these things amicably."
More on this ongoing legal battle tomorrow.
