Dealing with Patent Fragmentation in Genetics: Can Patent Pools Facilitate the Development of CRISPR Gene-Editing Technology?

The discovery of CRISPR systems has been one of the most exciting developments in the field of genetics in the past decade. The recent proliferation of intellectual property rights for CRISPR genome editing technology carries the risk of potential bottlenecks for further basic biological research and development of commercial products. To make CRISPR-based technology widely available, the reliance by the industry on efficient methods of collective management of intellectual property rights through patent pools seems inevitable. A packager of patent pools could be used as a mechanism to facilitate transactions in the market for technology and allow interested parties to deal with a single entity. This article argues that, while a global licensing platform could be effectively achieved in non-therapeutic applications of genome editing, it is questionable whether patent pooling would provide the ideal balance of incentive and reward for CRISPR genome editing technologies for human gene therapy.