Dear all
the work on the report is a little bit more complex than I thought. The reason: We see more and more patents which are claiming genes, genetic variations (SNPs) and all plants inheriting it, no matter how these genes are introduced.
I now identified about 20 relevant cases from 2021 patent applications, many of them really shocking, I think we should do our best to tell the story properly. This will take some time (April? May?).
As I wrote previously, such patents were granted in the past already, such as the patent on melons etc. from ENZA. In these cases, very few genetic variations were claimed in many species.
The current patent applications often claim many genetic variations in many species.
Most relevant are Syngenta, KWS, Corteva, Keygene (which cooperates with Bayer), Nunhems and also other breeders from NL such as RIJK ZWAAN.
To exemplify the problem for our our meeting tomorrow, I attach a patent application from Syngenta and its friends in China (WO2021000878) on soybeans with rust resistance. The number is brackets can be found in the pdf:
It starts with seeds from a gene bank (genetic variations found in strain SX6907 [0010, 0013, 0014], crossing and selection to introduce these genes, progeny which inherit the ‘marker genes’ [0016], harvested products.
on pages 28 – 57, you see table 1 with all the genetic variations found in the seeds of SX6907.
In the examples [305], you find the examination of SX6907 (from Chinese seed bank), [308] ff transgenic plants and [342] ff genome edited plants
the claims cover (see number of the claims, as starting on page 117):
(1) all relevant glycine plants in which the SNPs are introduced (by any method). (3-4) plants from genetic engineering /transferring of genes (8-14) plants with SNP markers (table 1) - note: these are not only 'markers', but the relevant genetic variations needed to confer rust resistance. (15-17) plants from genome editing (18 ff) transgene plants (46 – 47) genes and proteins (54-56) using of the genes in crossing and selection (71-72) rust resistance in other plant species, based on genetic equivalents.
I think these cases are highly relevant, but not so easy to analyse and communicate. We have to to do in a way that the message comes across. I think we also can use these examples to alert the CRISPR-community. Thus I continue to work on these examples.
In addition I suggest, for media work in March, to use the patent applications on gluten free beer. It looks like we will not get further information on the case, and now can prepare for public communication. I hope (if we agree) I can send some draft next.
so let us discuss tomorrow
Christoph