Intellectual property education exemplified by the patents on the CRISPR/Cas9 system.

ABSTRACT

With the accelerated globalization of the world economies, the role of intellectual property in the the competition is increasingly important. The universities are important base to instill the intellectual property awareness to the young generation. However, current model of intellectual property education cannot meet the needs of undergraduates. In this paper, we take the first patent issued for CRISPR/Cas9 system as a teaching example, and together with personal teaching experience in biomedicine related intellectual property, we propose a new way for intellectual property education which consists of two stages enlightenment stage and in-depth training stage. In the former stage, we integrate the intellectual property education with the basic major courses. In the latter stage, students are encouraged to devote into intellectual property related career. This model can somehow solve the the current shortage of qualified teachers for biotechnology related intellectual property education and will facilitate the popularization of intellectual property in college students. Since genetics plays a pivotal role in biomedicine, this effort is illustrated by the novel genome editing technology based on the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which is one hotspot of recent studies. The trajectory of CRISPR/Cas9 from basic microbial genetics discovery to major tools for genome editing exeplified the essence of biomedicine related intellectual property education.