upper waypoint

UC Berkeley Renews Legal Fight Over CRISPR-Cas9 Patent Rights

Save ArticleSave Article
Failed to save article

Please try again

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have filed an appeal to overturn a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board filed in mid-February. The board granted a patent to UC for CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing in bacterial cells, but awarded a separate a patent to the East-Coast based Broad Institute, jointly owned by Harvard and MIT, for CRISPR's use in plant and animal cells.

UC believes they were the first inventors and should have the patent for use in all applications.

"We expect to establish definitively that the team led by [UC's] Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier was the first to engineer CRISPR-Cas9 for use in all types of environments, including in non-cellular settings and within plant, animal and even human cells,” said Edward Penhoet,  associate dean of biology at UC Berkeley in a statement.

In a separate statement, the Broad Institute says they expect the outcome of the appeal to remain the same.

Billions are at stake. The patent for CRISPR gene editing will make whoever holds it a powerful player in the biomed industry, university research and the future of medicine.

Sponsored

For background on the patent dispute, and the new era of gene editing, catch our previous reporting.

CRISPR Patent War: Billions at Stake for UC Berkeley (Jan. 15, 2016 )

CRISPR Patent Ruling: 3 Different Takes (Feb. 23, 2017)

How New CRISPR/Cas9 Technique Could Be a Game Changer in Curing Genetic Diseases (Apr. 29, 2016)

lower waypoint
next waypoint