US Patent Issued to Suntory Holdings on May 13 for "Stevia plant having less ability to form flower buds" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,295,306, issued on May 13, was assigned to Suntory Holdings Ltd. (Osaka, Japan).

"Stevia plant having less ability to form flower buds" was invented by Tadayoshi Hirai (Kyoto, Japan), Kazunari Iwaki (Kanagawa, Japan) and Kentaro Ochiai (Kyoto, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a stevia plant having a low ability to form flower buds as compared with the wild type stevia species. The present invention also provides a method of producing such a stevia plant having a low ability to form flower buds, and an extract or a steviol glycoside purified product obtainable from such a plant."

The patent was filed on...