The University of California, Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier are set to receive a wide-ranging patent from the European Patent Office (EPO) for CRISPR gene-editing technology. The EPO announced its intention to grant the patent, which covers the use of CRISPR in all cell types, last week (March 23). Challenges are expected in coming months. Moreover, some have argued that the CRISPR intellectual property (IP) situation in Europe will mean less than the ongoing IP evaluations in the U.S., where the UC Berkeley team’s patent coverage remains to be determined.
“The U.S. is . . . the market where up until now most therapeutics make by far the most money,” Bob Cook-Deegan of Arizona State University told The Scientist. “So US patents matter more.”
A reexamination of the roles of maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase (MELK) in cancer cells has suggested that the protein is not necessary ...
