US Patent Issued to NUNHEMS on June 24 for "Method for selecting seed size in watermelon and generating modifications in the tomato-seed size gene" (American, Italian, Spanish Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,336,470, issued on June 24, was assigned to NUNHEMS B.V. (Nunhem, Netherlands).

"Method for selecting seed size in watermelon and generating modifications in the tomato-seed size gene" was invented by Richard Bernard Berentsen (Paterna, Spain), Courtney Hu (Sacramento, Calif.) and Elena Chiapparino (Sant Agata Bolognese Emilia-Romagna, Italy).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The disclosure provides methods for selecting watermelon plants for genetic elements on chromosome 2 and 6 which genetic elements predict the average seed size produced in the fruits of said plants and watermelon plants and plant parts comprising modifications in the to...