If I understand it right, the basis for the "novelty" is not the mutations, rather it is that they are testing cDNA (effectively, a gene with exons spliced out,

If I understand it right, the basis for the "novelty" is not the mutations, rather it is that they are testing cDNA (effectively, a gene with exons spliced out, but as DNA not RNA - so this never exists in nature as such, because splicing occurs on the RNA transcript). My problem with it is that the so called "novel" molecule is a result of a process that is not inventive - it is a systematic process that is routinely done all the time, and which is entirely based on and constrained by the natural enzymes that perform it. So I don't see why a molecule that is merely a mechanical result of a non-novel process is novel.