Cetus Corp. and Du Pont said Friday that they have settledlitigation regarding Cetus' polymerase chain reactiontechnology.

The settlement includes dismissal of the pending federal courtcases. Du Pont and Cetus, now a subsidiary of Chiron Corp.,declined to say whether any payment or technology exchangehad been made.

Du Pont sued Cetus in 1989, claiming its patents were invalidbased on prior art. A jury in February upheld the validity oftwo of Cetus' PCR patents. A second trial had been planned todetermine whether Du Pont had infringed Cetus' patents and todetermine damages.

Cetus sold the PCR technology last week to F. Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. as part of the Chiron merger. Chiron stock(NASDAQ:CHIR) closed at $63.50 on Friday, down 38 cents.

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