March 7/Alexandria, Va./U.S. Fed News -- U.S. patent no. 7,897,850, issued on March 1, was assigned to Sapporo Breweries Ltd.

"Barley Lipoxygenase 1 Gene, Method of Selecting Barley Variety, Material of Malt Alcoholic Drinks and Process for Producing Malt Alcoholic Drink" was invented by Naohiko Hirota (Gunma, Japan), Takafumi Kaneko (Gunma, Japan), Hisao Kuroda (Yaizu, Japan), Hirotaka Kaneda (Yaizu, Japan), Kiyoshi Takoi (Yaizu, Japan) and Kazuyoshi Takeda (Kurashiki, Japan).

According to the abstract released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, "A selection method for barley lipoxygenase-1 deficient barley, comprising a step of distinguishing the barley lipoxygenase-1 deficient barley by whether or not the guanine at the splicing donor site of the 5th intron of the barley lipoxygenase-1 gene is mutated to a different base; and a method for production of malt alcoholic beverages using a material for malt alcoholic beverages derived from barley obtained by the selection method."

The patent was filed on March 25, 2004, under Application No. 10/550,528.

For further information, visit: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7897850&OS=7897850&RS=7897850

From the March 21, 2011, Prepared Foods E-dition