CRISPR Patent Battle Determined on 2/15/2017 – USPTO issues a verdict in legal tussle over rights to genome-editing technology | Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

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CRISPR Patent Battle Determined on 2/15/2017 – USPTO issues a verdict in legal tussle over rights to genome-editing technology

February 16, 2017 by 2012pharmaceutical

CRISPR Patent Battle Determined on 2/15/2017 – USPTO issues a verdict in legal tussle over rights to genome-editing technology

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Broad Institute prevails in heated dispute over CRISPR patents

Sharon Begley sharon.begley@statnews.com
@sxbegle

In a one-sentence judgment by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the three judges decided that there is “no interference in fact.” In other words, key CRISPR patents awarded to the Broad beginning in 2014 are sufficiently different from patents applied for by UC that they can stand. The judges’ full 51-page decision explaining their reasoning stated that the Broad had persuaded them “that the parties claim patentably distinct subject matter.”

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/15/crispr-patent-ruling/#decision

MIT

The Broad said in a statement that the decision “confirms that the patents and applications of Broad Institute and UC Berkeley are about different subjects and do not interfere with each other.”

UC, Berkeley

In a statement, the University of California said it was pleased that its patent application, which it described as covering “the invention and use of CRISPR gene editing in all cells,” can move forward. “We continue to maintain that the evidence overwhelmingly supports our position that the Doudna/Charpentier team was the first group to invent this technology for use in all settings and all cell types,” it said, “and that the Broad Institute’s patents directed toward use of the CRISPR-Cas9 system in particular cell types are not patentably distinct from the Doudna/Charpentier invention.”

UC said it is considering its legal options, including the possibility of an appeal, but it contended that anyone who wants to develop CRISPR-based treatments for human diseases would have to license not only the Broad’s patents but also those that UC expects to be awarded. “Ours,” Doudna told reporters, “is for the use [of CRISPR] in all cells,” including human ones.

PTAB appeals are heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which sits in Washington. In recent years, more than half of PTAB’s decisions have been upheld.

“The Federal Circuit heard three appeals of interferences in 2016,” said Sherkow. “All three were at least affirmed in part. It’s completely unclear whether that’s meaningful — it’s an N of 3–but there you go.” Overall, on 155 appeals since PTAB was created in 2012, the Federal Circuit affirmed 120 on every issue, dismissed or reversed 21 on every issue, and issued partial decisions (that is, upholding parts of a PTAB decision and reversing others) in the other 14.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/15/crispr-patent-ruling/#decision

Said UC attorney Lynn Pasahow:

For “all tennis balls,” read “all cells.” For “green tennis balls,” read “eukaryotic cells.”

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/16/crispr-patent-decision-six-takeaways/

What will that mean for licensees of CRISPR patents?

Stanford University Voice

UC believes that any company that wants to use CRISPR to develop human therapies — we’re looking at you, Editas Medicine — will need to license not only the Broad’s patents on eukaryotic cells but also those UC expects to receive on all kinds of cells. “It looks to me as if someone wanting to use the Broad patent would also have to license the UC patent,” agreed law professor Hank Greely of Stanford University. “The UC patent (if granted) would be on any use; the Broad would be on use in eukaryotes. I think someone who wanted to do this in eukaryotes would need to have licenses to both.”

CRISPR-Cas9 is unlikely to be the last genome-editing technology ever discovered. In 2015, Zhang and his colleagues discovered a version called Cpf1, which they’ve now patented and licensed to Editas. “I continue to think the possibility of inventing around the [CRISPR] patents seems very likely,” said Stanford’s Greely. Bacteria “have certainly come up with other ways to reach the same end [of genome editing], ways that aren’t covered by UC’s or the Broad’s claims. That could make either of these patents ultimately of little importance … especially if the licensing conditions give people a strong incentive to come up with invent-arounds.” Science will march on.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/16/crispr-patent-decision-six-takeaways/

What does the CRISPR ruling mean for biotech?

By DAMIAN GARDE @damiangarde

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Editas Medicine, which has aligned with the winning Broad, saw its share price rise more than 25 percent on Wednesday. Intellia Therapeutics, affiliated with UC, fell about 11 percent, while compatriot CRISPR Therapeutics dipped 24 percent.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/15/what-does-the-crispr-ruling-mean-for-biotech/

Broad Institute wins bitter battle over CRISPR patents

The US Patent and Trademark Office issues a verdict in legal tussle over rights to genome-editing technology.

Heidi Ledford

15 February 2017 Updated:In December 2016, lawyers representing the University of California and the Broad Institute participated in oral arguments before a trio of patent-court judges. University of California attorney Lynn Pasahow said that the team had not yet decided whether it would appeal the verdict on 2/15/2017.

Lawyers representing the University of California filed for an ‘interference’ proceeding, in an effort to have the Broad’s patents thrown out. But on 15 February, patent judges determined that there was no interference, meaning that the Broad’s invention is distinct from that of the University of California, and the Broad patents will stand. The University of California’s patent application will now be referred back to an examiner, but legal challenges could continue.

molecular biologist Jennifer Doudna of the University of California in Berkeley, likened the situation to licensing permission to someone who wants to use green tennis balls. “They will have a patent on the green tennis balls,” she said, referring to the Broad patents. “We will have a patent on all tennis balls.” ”Doudna argued at the press conference that the patent battle had not hampered research, given the speed with which researchers had taken up the technique and companies had rushed to commercialize it.”

The University of California’s invention would cover the design of the RNA molecule that guides the key step in CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing, directing the Cas9 enzyme to a specific site in the genome. But getting that system to work in eukaryotes was an additional inventive step, Coombes says, a patent lawyer at intellectual-property specialists HGF in York, UK.

SOURCE

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2017.21502

http://www.nature.com/news/broad-institute-wins-bitter-battle-over-crispr-patents-1.21502?WT.ec_id=NEWSDAILY-20170216%20

https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/15/crispr-patent-ruling/#decision