5. Oktober 2023 – In 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the developing a method for genome editing. As far as the patent protection of their invention, the researchers - or their universities - have been in bitter dispute with a research group at the Broad Institute led by Feng Zhang for years. This article traces the underlying patent disputes concerning the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology and highlights the state of the international harmonization of patent law.