Despite the strong presence of Chinese scientists in genome-editing research, little attention has been paid to the legal, economic, and scientific development of patented CRISPR technologies in China. In this study, we focus on CRISPR patent documents from academic and industrial Chinese players to assess their positioning on this breakthrough technology. We review the fields of application and the CRISPR components claimed in the relevant patent documents. Our results show different profiles observed for academic or industrial assignees. Most of the patent families in our data set cover applications in genome editing and nucleic-acid detection for human therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Trends in the patent data since 2014 confirm that China’ R&D has rapidly developed a significant CRISPR patent landscape of its own, covering a diverse range of systems and applications. These recent developments deserve closer scrutiny from the international CRISPR community.
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