The whole point of fertilizers is to grow plants on soil with too little Nitrogen for the desired yield. If these bacteria can lower the amounts of fertilizer p

The whole point of fertilizers is to grow plants on soil with too little Nitrogen for the desired yield. If these bacteria can lower the amounts of fertilizer per yield, that's good enough. It might be hard to patent though. As far as I understood it you just need to infect the plants with the bacteria, and once the bacteria are out in the open, it will be hard to stop others from using them with or without intent...