The US Patent and Trademark Office yesterday (February 28) ruled that the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard will retain its intellectual property over the use of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in eukaryotes. While the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuel Charpentier (collectively known as the CVC group in legal filings) maintain their original patent over the use of CRISPR-Cas9 to edit genes in vitro and in prokaryotes and some other intellectual property pertaining to the technology, the ruling in this latest proceeding effectively invalidates filings that specifically covered use in eukaryotes, potentially forcing companies that have licensed the technology from the CVC group to negotiate new deals with the Broad or other stakeholders. The ruling is the latest twist in the battle for ownership of a technique being explored commercially for everything from crop improvement to treating genetic diseases.
The new ruling finds that, “in the eukaryotic ...
