A hybrid breeding scheme in tomatoes can be a very effective method of stacking dominant traits, such as disease resistance alleles/markers, but as has been said earlier - these will segregate in the F2. Recessive alleles such as most traits associated with fruit color (other than red), and including many of the fruit traits that make Kumato distinct, need to be on both sides of the hybrid pedigree, and will breed true in the F2.
On the patent issue, in the U.S. it is possible to obtain a utility patent on hybrids and/or inbred parents developed through conventional breeding. The invention simply needs to be novel, non-obvious and useful. Such patents are now routine in maize and soybeans, and less common in tomatoes. There is standard language in such patents that specifically prohibit GE modification of the covered materials - that should not be confused with the patent covering a GE trait.
There have been many cases where GE techniques have been used in tomato research to help understand pathways, etc. The Klee Lab work at U of Florida on tomato flavor is a good example. These GE plants are subject to specific USDA/APHIS regulations to prevent gene escape - and with one exception do not appear to be targeted for a commercial product. The one exception is the anthocyanin tomato from John Innes Center in England. In this case my understanding is that it may be released in Canada for greenhouse only culture of tomatoes for value-added juice.
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