It's an interesting distinction here. I would argue that the science is already free. The Cas9 protein is a natural product. The guide RNA can be synthesized easily. What is being patented here is use of Cas9/CRISPR to edit human cells. In a general sense that is actually the product, and not merely "the science." In other cases, where the Cas9 protein is engineered to achieve things like lower off-target cutting rate, that is a pretty classical case of human invention.
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It's an interesting distinction here. I would argue that the science is already free. The Cas9 protein is a natural product. The guide RNA can be synthesized easily. What is being patented here is use of Cas9/CRISPR to edit human cells. In a general sense that is actually the product, and not merely "the science." In other cases, where the Cas9 protein is engineered to achieve things like lower off-target cutting rate, that is a pretty classical case of human invention.