Tessenderlo Kerley, Sipcam announce licensing agreement

Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc. (TKI) and Sipcam (Sipcam) announced recently a licensing agreement settling their dispute involving TKI's intellectual property covering sunburn protectant agricultural products.

TKI's NovaSource crop protection business unit markets its highly engineered calcined kaolin product, Surround Crop Protectant, globally.

The U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued final regulations on June 23, 2016 outlining new lower thresholds for worker exposure to crystalline silica. Per OSHA's guidelines, if respirable particles are present in quantities that exceed certain thresholds, this naturally occurring mineral contaminant can cause cancer.

In January 2014, TKI received a patent covering the creation of agricultural particle films of hydrous kaolin, or calcium carbonate without having harmful levels of crystalline silica (US 8,637,091 B2). The technology utilizes a water wash technique to remove the silica, ensuring agricultural workers are not exposed to harmful levels when mixing, loading, or when conducting in-field activities such as during pruning or harvest.

As part of the agreement, Sipcam will market Cocoon under license TKI granted Sipcam to utilize the patented technology.

"TKI uses the highest quality of kaolin raw materials in its own SURROUND product, and is pleased to offer its safety technology to other suppliers to ensure maximum stewardship efforts are practiced for all the agricultural uses of kaolin," states David Cassidy, group vice president of TKI.

NovaSource is the crop protection business unit of TKI and is responsible for developing and marketing crop protection products for niche agricultural markets globally. For more information, visit novasource.com.

TKI produces and markets specialty chemical solutions, including fertilizers, crop protection chemicals and process chemicals and services to diverse markets around the world. TKI operates 11 manufacturing plants in North America in addition to an extensive terminal network. TKI is a subsidiary of Tessenderlo Group, Brussels, Belgium.