Cohen-Boyer patent finally issued

On 28 August 1984, the Patent Office finally approved a second Cohen-Boyer patent which covers hybrid bacterial plasmids. This patent, together with an earlier one covering methods, provides the University of California, San Francisco, and Stanford University with proprietary control over the basic techniques and tools used in gene splicing. The Patent Office rejected a claim by an alleged third co-inventor because of doubts about whether information in the patent application would enable the plasmids to be duplicated. The universities accepted the patent's restriction to bacterial plasmids and will pursue a separate application for yeast plasmids.