U.S. Patents Relevant to Drosophila
Updated May 31, 2011
Stock Center logo
Many Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center stocks contain patented components. The most common of these are listed below, but this list is not exhaustive. Patent owners permit unrestricted use of their materials for nonprofit research only. It is the recipient's responsibility to obtain any necessary licenses from the patent holder for commercial work with these stocks.
Report of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Working Group on Research Tools
bullet Full report bullet Basic Guidelines for the Transfer of Research Tools to and from Recipients of NIH Funds

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) offers a searchable full-text database of U.S. patents issued since January 1, 1976. Use the PTO search page to find many patents related to Drosophila. FlyBase also includes Drosophila patents in its references, but only the citation is available from FlyBase.

Patents of particular relevance to Drosophila workers:

  • Transposable elements as transformation vectors (including P-element vectors)
    United States Patent Number 4,670,388, Method of incorporating DNA into genome of Drosophila
  • Minos as a transformation vector
    United States Patent Number 5,348,874, 5,840,865, 6,159,717, 6,469,228, Eukaryotic transposable element
  • piggyBac as a transformation vector
    United States Patent Number 7,105,343, Methods and compositions for transposition using minimal segments of the eukaryotic transformation vector Piggybac
    United States Patent Number 7,129,083, PiggyBac transformation system
  • GAL4/UAS
    United States Patent Number 5,641,673, Cell ablation using trans-splicing ribozymes
  • GFP
    United States Patent Number 5,491,084, Uses of green-fluorescent protein
    United States Patent Number 5,541,309, Modified apoaequorin having increased bioluminescent activity
    United States Patent Number 5,804,387, FACS-optimized mutants of the green fluorescent protein
  • RFP
    United States Patent Number 6,124,128, Long wavelength engineered fluorescent proteins
  • LifeAct
    United States Patent Application Number 20110111445, Peptide for determining actin structures in living cells
  • cre/lox
    United States Patent Number 4,959,317, Site-specific recombination of DNA in eukaryotic cells
          Memorandum of Understanding between Dupont and the PHS