The First of the Three Cohen-Boyer Recombinant DNA Cloning Patents is Granted

12/2/1980

The method that Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer invented eventually resulted in U.S. patent No. 4,237,224 granted to Cohen and Boyer on December 2, 1980. This patent, "Process for producing biologically functional molecular chimeras," was the foundation of the biotechnology industry. Stanford University, to whom Cohen and Boyer assigned the patent, licensed it in a strategic manner, charging only modest royalties, providing great initial stimulus to the rapidly expanding biotechnology industry.

Cohen published a semi-popular account of this research as "The manipulation of genes," Scientific American233 (1975) 24-33.

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