US Patent and Trademark OfficeFLICKR, ALAN KOTOKUpdate (January 17): Following arbitration, Broad and Rockefeller have settled their patent dispute, leaving Broad's patent applications as-is, according to a January 15 Broad press release. This means that an important patent for applying CRISPR genome editing to eukaryotic cells goes to Broad’s Feng Zhang, and will not include Rockefeller’s Luciano Marraffini as an inventor.
Separately, a decision about Broad's patents abroad has been reached by the European Patent Office’s Opposition Division today, in which Broad loses “priority” for one of its CRISPR patents. Catherine Coombes, a patent attorney who has been closely following CRISPR patents in Europe, writes in an email to The Scientist, “Oral Proceedings continue and the outcome is likely to be a complete revocation of the patent or a very severe restriction of the claim scope.” In a statement, Broad says it will appeal the decision.
As the biotech community has become fixated on a patent fight between the Broad Institute and the University of California (UC), Berkeley, over who can stake its claim to the revolutionary gene-editing technique that is CRISPR, another dispute has been ...
