New Battle in CRISPR Patent War Adds To The Uncertainty Surrounding The Technology

IAM reports, “The long-running US dispute over rights to CRISPR-Cas9 took another turn this week, when the USPTO initiated a new proceeding to determine whether patents owned by the Broad Institute interfere with several applications by the University of California. This follows the West Coast organisation’s high-profile losses in previous proceedings in which it argued that the Broad’s patents to CRISPR-Cas9 in eukaryotic cells (human, animal and plant cells) overlap with another of its patent applications to uses of the technology across all cell types.”

Referencing client The University of California, Berkeley, Director Eldora L. Ellison, Ph.D. is quoted in the coverage saying, “The initiation of this interference proceeding highlights that previous decisions involving the Broad did not determine who was the first to invent this technology, and it lays out a pathway for resolving this important issue.”