Dear all

Andreas discovered this patent from Nunhems (BASF) on tomatoes.

It is a perfect mix of spontaneous mutations, induced random mutations, methods for selecting mutations (Tilling), targeted mutagenesis and transgenic plants. All is mentioned in the description.

In the claims, all (relevant) mutations are claimed, no matter where they stem from. No examples are given what was done by Nunhems in real, so it is unclear how the mutations were achieved  (I guess it was induced at random mutagenesis).

the only thing which is not ideal: The patent was applied before CRISPR was applied broadly. Therefore the example they use for targeted mutagenesis is oligodirected mutagenesis (ODM) (as reference EP 1963505 is given).

In summary, this patent definitely can be used to fuel our campaign.

cheers

Christoph