| Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
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| September, 2002 |
| Revoked Degussa's EU Patent on GC-Lysine |
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Aiming to become a global corporation in food and amino acid products from its origins in Japan, Ajinomoto Co., Inc. is developing its businesses globally. One such business is feed-use amino acids, in which Ajinomoto is a leading global company, with six production bases worldwide.
In feed-use amino acids business AJINOMOTO ANIMAL NUTRITION Group* intends to diversify the product lineups, aiming at efficient production which is also environmentally friendly along with responding to the world customer wants, and GC-Lysine** is one of them, which can be produced efficiently and minimize the environmental burden due to more simplified manufacturing process.
In May 1996, Ajinomoto Co., Inc. filed notice of opposition against a European patent owned by Degussa AG (German chemical company) , which was a hindrance to our development of GC-Lysine in Europe, on the grounds that it lacked inventive step.
On April 18, 2002, the European Patent Office completely agreed to our appeal and decided that Degussa's EU patent on GC-Lysine would be revoked.
By this decision AJINOMOTO ANIMAL NUTRITION Group is able to go on GC-Lysine business without restrictions of patent in the fair competitive market in Europe.
AJINOMOTO ANIMAL NUTRITION Group will continue to provide as a global market leader a stable supply of high-quality feed-use amino acid products and offer customer services tailored to each region in 6 global production and sales bases in France, Italy, USA, Thailand, China and Brazil to contribute to customers worldwide.
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