Syntro Corp. said Thursday that it and its wholly owned subsidiary,SyntroVet Inc., have been named as defendants in a patentinfringement complaint filed in the Southern District of Texas.The complaint, filed by NovaGene Inc. and the Baylor College ofMedicine, both of Houston, alleges that SyntroVet and Syntro, by themanufacturing and selling of swine pseudorabies vaccines, infringed onpatents issued in 1985 and 1986 and assigned to the plaintiffs."This came right out of left field," J. Donald Todd, Syntro's presidentand chief executive officer, told BioWorld. "We had no advance noticeor communications."Syntro (NASDAQ:SYNT) has been marketing the pseudorabiesproducts since 1988. William Davies, Syntro's vice president, toldBioWorld the majority of the company's net product sales of $2.7million last year were derived from pseudorabies sales."We've been aware of the patents," Davies said. `We don't believe weare infringing upon them and we believe the court will agree with us.Why they chose to file a suit at this time I haven't the slightest idea."A NovaGene representative did not return calls when contacted byBioWorld for comment on Thursday. _ Jim Shrine

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