Patent ID: 7125691

Claim:
A method for determining the efficiency of an amplification of a target nucleic acid comprising the steps of: (a) preparing a dilution series of the target nucleic acid; (b) amplifying the target nucleic acid in the dilution series under defined reaction conditions and measuring the amplification in real-time; (c) setting a defined signal threshold value; (d) determining, for each dilution, the cycle number at which the signal threshold value is exceeded; (e) determining a non-linear continuously differentiable function of a logarithm of the initial copy number of target nucleic acid in the dilutions used for the amplification as a function of the cycle number at which the signal threshold value is exceeded in the dilutions, wherein the non-linear continuously differentiable function from step (e) is determined with a polynomial fit of the 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th , 6 th or 7 th degree; and (f) calculating the amplification efficiency from said non-linear continuously differentiable function.