The Federal Circuit rejected both the appeal and the cross-appeal in Syngenta Crop Protection AG v. UPL Ltd., Nos. 2025-1018, 2025-1019 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 14, 2026) (nonprecedential), which arose from post-grant review PGR2023-00017, and affirmed the Board's rulings. Circuit Judge Taranto wrote for a panel that also included Circuit Judges Hughes and Cunningham (Op. 2).

The claims and the Board's ruling

Claim 1 of the '727 patent recites "[a] fungicidal combination consisting of benzovindiflupyr, mancozeb, and at least another fungicide selected from an ergosterol biosynthesis inhibitor fungicide, and a quinone outside inhibitor fungicide," each drawn from a listed set. Claim 2 requires one of each (Op. 3-4). In its July 26, 2024 final written decision, the Board held claims 1, 3-5, 7, 9, and 10 anticipated by a Brazilian publication (Godoy), claims 1 and 3-10 anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 9,314,022 (Tobler), and claim 2 obvious over a WO publication (De Oliveira) in view of a published abstract (Wiglesworth), Tobler, and Godoy (Op. 5, 7).

The court saw no abuse of discretion in the Board's rejection of UPL's argument that Syngenta's petition was deficiently pleaded (Op. 9-11). It agreed with the Board that "combination" and "composition" include applying the fungicides one after another, pointing to the patent's interchangeable use of the two terms and its statement that the composition "may be applied sequentially" (Op. 11-13). It upheld the finding that Nimbus, an extra ingredient in Godoy's treatments, was not a fungicide as used in Godoy (the Board credited evidence that it was a mineral-oil adjuvant), so Godoy met the "consisting of" limitation (Op. 14-17). It also held that Tobler expressly listed the claimed three-part combination, so the case did not involve a genus said to anticipate an unnamed species (Op. 18-19), and that substantial evidence supported a motivation to add benzovindiflupyr to De Oliveira's mixtures (Op. 20-21).

The sanctions cross-appeal

Syngenta suspected that field trials reported in the patent had not taken place. Two days before the final written decision, it asked the Board for leave to move for sanctions under 37 C.F.R. 42.11. Six months earlier, UPL had withdrawn its reliance on the patent's field-trial data, and the Board denied leave on that basis (Op. 7-8). The court found that Syngenta had standing, but it read the rule's safe-harbor sentence, which says a sanctions motion "must not be filed or be presented to the Board" if the challenged paper, claim, defense, contention, or denial is withdrawn or appropriately corrected within 21 days after service of the proposed motion or another time the Board sets, as "both firm and broad" and found no abuse of discretion in the Board's application of it (Op. 21-25). The opinion does not discuss the 21-day timing language. The court did not decide whether the trials took place.