The US Patent and Trademark Office has once again decided that the institute has priority over the University of California and collaborators regarding intellectual property rights for CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in eukaryotes. But the fight over the technique isn’t over.
In a win for the US Department of Justice’s China Initiative, Charles Lieber was convicted of hiding his financial ties to China from federal agencies.
The move, which is not supported by the pharmaceutical industry, would allow other countries to design and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines without fear of litigation.
Four Chinese nationals have been charged with visa fraud after revelations that they sent information on the layout of US labs and research carried out by colleagues back to China.
Administration officials and lawmakers say the move is to shore up national security threats, but university professors argue such cancellations represent targeted discrimination.
Prosecutors say two other researchers from the same cancer lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center successfully stole material and brought it to China.
The US patent office declares an interference between the intellectual property held by the Broad Institute and several patent applications filed by the University of California—opposite its previous ruling.
Changing policy has left academics uncertain about what is legal for foreign involvement in research, and increased hostility and bureaucracy have led students and scholars to seek opportunities elsewhere.
The University of California files a brief in its appeal challenging the ruling that the Broad Institute’s group would retain its CRISPR genome-editing patent.
The European Patent Office will grant patent rights over the use of CRISPR in all cell types to a University of California team, contrasting with a recent decision in the U.S.
The USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled in favor of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard retaining intellectual property rights covered by its patents for CRISPR gene-editing technology.