Calgene officials said Thursday that it's confident that a U.S.patent critical to its Flavr Savr tomato will withstand achallenge by ICI Americas Corp.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed last week toreview an interference between a patent issued to Calgene in1989 covering the gene encoding for the tomato-ripeningenzyme PG gene (Polygalacturonase) and its inhibition usingantisense RNA and ICI's patent application on similar materialfiled in 1986.

Although the technology covered in the disputed patent iscrucial to Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato, Roger Salquist, companypresident and chief executive officer, expects the reviewprocess will produce no surprises. "There is zero likelihood thatour patent for PG will be overturned," he said.

Calgene beat ICI to the patent office in 1986 by a few weekswith its application. ICI claims that lab notes held by thecompany prove that its experimental developments were moreadvanced than Calgene's at the time of application, forming thebasis of its plea for a review of ownership.

Salquist said that Calgene has no interest in a related gene toPG, PE (Pectin Methyl Esterease), which was covered in a patentreceived by ICI last December. PE and PG are the two keyenzymes that are activated during the ripening process intomatoes and degrade pectin.

"The two enzymes (PG and PE) work in conjunction with eachother and are the key factors used in the technology that we'reworking with to develop products," said ICI spokesman BillWarelis. He declined to comment on potential products ICI hasin development using the enzymes, but said, "We're talkingabout a large business, where the greatest deal of potential ishere in the U.S."

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