Doudna and Charpentier and their teams to receive wide-ranging patents in many countries: European Patent Office (EPO) and UK Intellectual Property Office – broad patent for CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to the University of California and the University of Vienna | Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Feeds:: Posts; Comments

« Sleep Research Society announces 2017 award recipients including Thomas S. Kilduff, PhD, Director, Center for Neuroscience at SRI International in Menlo Park, California

Highlights of LIVE Day 1: World Medical Innovation Forum – CARDIOVASCULAR • MAY 1-3, 2017 BOSTON, MA • UNITED STATES »

Doudna and Charpentier and their teams to receive wide-ranging patents in many countries: European Patent Office (EPO) and UK Intellectual Property Office – broad patent for CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to the University of California and the University of Vienna

April 28, 2017 by 2012pharmaceutical

Doudna and Charpentierand their teams to receive wide-ranging patents in many countries: European Patent Office (EPO) and UK Intellectual Property Office – broad patent for CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to the University of California and the University of Vienna

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

The EPO patent will cover the single-guide CRISPR-Cas9 technology in cells of all types. The technology was invented by Jennifer Doudna, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, Charpentier, now director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and their colleagues. Applications include treatment of various human diseases, as well as veterinary, agricultural and other biotech applications. The European patent would cover some 40 countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The EPO has stated its intent to grant a patent with claims that encompass all cells, despite objections from third parties, including the Broad Institute, a joint research institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“We are excited that this patent will issue based on the foundational research we published with Emmanuelle Charpentier and the rest of our team. We look forward to the continued applications of gene-editing technology to solve problems in human health and agriculture,” said Doudna, who is a Howard Hughes Medical investigator at UC Berkeley.

The UC patent application to the EPO was substantially the same as the UC patent application filed in the United States. In the U.S., UC claims covering the use of single-guide CRISPR-Cas9 technology in any setting were found to be allowable by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and were placed in an interference with patents owned by the Broad Institute that cover use of the technology in eukaryotic cells. An interference is a formal legal proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to determine who was the first to invent.

“We disagree with the recent PTAB decision to terminate the interference between claims of the UC and the Broad Institute, and we are keeping all of our options open, including the possibility of an appeal,” Penhoet said. “We remain confident that when the inventorship question is finally answered, the Doudna and Charpentier teams will prevail.”

WATCH VIDEO