Harvard, MIT, Berkeley are still fighting over genome-editing patents. Now another ruling
(2022/03/02)
- Reference: 1646183637
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/02/us_patent_crispr/
- Source link:
The US Patent Office's appeal board on Monday sided with Harvard University and MIT by upholding a set of the group's patents covering CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in plants and animals.
[1]CRISPR refers to a set of DNA sequences – Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – and the protein Cas9 is an enzyme that can cut DNA sequences. Research on CRISPR sequences dates back [2]to 1993 .
The foundational work on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in 2011 by Emmanuelle Charpentier, founder of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Germany, and Jennifer Doudna, professor of Biomedical and Health at the University of California, Berkeley, proved significant enough to earn the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Why does this matter?
So some boffins are arguing about patents on some ochem technique. What's the issue?
Well, if you want to make it to a century of life, CRISPR is going to be the technology to do it, allowing the development of targeted cures that will, in the words of Dr McCoy, lead us out of one of " [3]the dark ages " of medicine. The ability to edit genes, albeit at a primitive level for now, will transform lives and also make some people super-Bezos rich.
The eventual winner of cases like these will have some very valuable IP. Instead of carpet-bombing cancer patients with chemotherapy, CRISPR-tailored drugs could attack only those cells that are out of control. The technology could be used to develop new crops and more. There's a lot of money at stake here.
Doudna, Charpentier, Martin Jinek of UC Berkeley, and Krzystof Chylinski of the University of Vienna filed the first CRISPR-Cas9 patent application in May, 2012.
In December that year, researchers from The Broad Institute – a collaboration between Harvard University and MIT – filed their own patent application, and other patents have followed from multiple groups in the US, Europe, China, and other countries. According to Nature, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last September [4]had about 6,000 CRISPR patents or patent applications, with 200 added each month.
[5]
The Broad Institute was the first to be awarded a CRISPR patent, in April, 2014 (US Patent No. [6]8,697,359 ), based on work dating back to February 2011. According to the Broad Institute, its patent application was reviewed first and granted first because it requested "accelerated examination" and the UC group did not.
[7]
[8]
A set of Broad Institute patents were challenged in 2015 when the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (CVC) sought an [9]interference proceeding to determine which group should be recognized as the inventor of the technology. CVC argued that details its researchers disclosed should invalidate subsequent Broad patent applications.
The USPTO began its interference proceeding in 2016, and in 2017 found that the Broad Institute's claims did not interfere with those made by CVC researchers. Following an appeal, the US Court of Appeals in 2018 affirmed that Broad Institute's patents were separately patentable and didn't overlap with what CVC claimed.
[10]
Then the USPTO initiated a second interference proceeding in 2019 covering 10 CVC CRISPR patents and 13 Broad Institute patents and one Broad patent application.
This second CVC-backed proceeding concluded on Monday with the USPTO's Patent, Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issuing a decision
[12]Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry awarded to boffins studying complex systems, organic catalysts
[13]You heard the latest Chinese CRISPRs? They are real: Renegade bio-boffin did genetically modify baby twins
[14]London's Francis Crick Institute will house 1,250 cancer-fighting boffins
[15]Scientists splice mammoth genes into unsuspecting elephant
"This decision once again confirmed Broad’s patents were properly issued," the Broad Institute said in [16]a statement . "As the PTAB and US federal courts have repeatedly established, the claims of Broad’s patents to methods for use in eukaryotic cells, such as for genome editing, are patentably distinct and not reasonably expected from results of biochemical 'test tube' experiments."
The University of California, Berkeley, expressed unhappiness with the ruling, which doesn't affect more than 40 other CRISPR-related patents in the US, as well as patents in other countries.
"The University of California is disappointed by the PTAB’s decision and believes the PTAB made a number of errors," the university said in [17]a statement . "CVC is considering various options to challenge this decision."
[18]
The Broad Institute patents at issue are also currently being challenged by biotech firms Toolgen and Sigma-Aldrich. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/23/us_committee_greenlights_crisprcas9_human_cancer_cell_trials/
[2] https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/crispr-timeline
[3] https://youtu.be/Ssq8wHAx4nE?t=13
[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02420-x
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.broadinstitute.org/files/shared/osap/pdf/US8697359.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/interference_proceedings
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.scribd.com/document/561762623/106-115-Decision-on-Priority
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/07/nobel_physics_chemistry/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/22/first_genetically_modified_twins/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/02/first_glimpses_inside_the_francis_crick_institute/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/23/scientists_splice_mammoth_genes_into_elephant/
[16] https://www.broadinstitute.org/crispr/journalists-statement-and-background-crispr-patent-process
[17] https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/28/u-s-patent-appeal-board-rules-against-university-of-california/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
[1]CRISPR refers to a set of DNA sequences – Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – and the protein Cas9 is an enzyme that can cut DNA sequences. Research on CRISPR sequences dates back [2]to 1993 .
The foundational work on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in 2011 by Emmanuelle Charpentier, founder of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Germany, and Jennifer Doudna, professor of Biomedical and Health at the University of California, Berkeley, proved significant enough to earn the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Why does this matter?
So some boffins are arguing about patents on some ochem technique. What's the issue?
Well, if you want to make it to a century of life, CRISPR is going to be the technology to do it, allowing the development of targeted cures that will, in the words of Dr McCoy, lead us out of one of " [3]the dark ages " of medicine. The ability to edit genes, albeit at a primitive level for now, will transform lives and also make some people super-Bezos rich.
The eventual winner of cases like these will have some very valuable IP. Instead of carpet-bombing cancer patients with chemotherapy, CRISPR-tailored drugs could attack only those cells that are out of control. The technology could be used to develop new crops and more. There's a lot of money at stake here.
Doudna, Charpentier, Martin Jinek of UC Berkeley, and Krzystof Chylinski of the University of Vienna filed the first CRISPR-Cas9 patent application in May, 2012.
In December that year, researchers from The Broad Institute – a collaboration between Harvard University and MIT – filed their own patent application, and other patents have followed from multiple groups in the US, Europe, China, and other countries. According to Nature, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last September [4]had about 6,000 CRISPR patents or patent applications, with 200 added each month.
[5]
The Broad Institute was the first to be awarded a CRISPR patent, in April, 2014 (US Patent No. [6]8,697,359 ), based on work dating back to February 2011. According to the Broad Institute, its patent application was reviewed first and granted first because it requested "accelerated examination" and the UC group did not.
[7]
[8]
A set of Broad Institute patents were challenged in 2015 when the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (CVC) sought an [9]interference proceeding to determine which group should be recognized as the inventor of the technology. CVC argued that details its researchers disclosed should invalidate subsequent Broad patent applications.
The USPTO began its interference proceeding in 2016, and in 2017 found that the Broad Institute's claims did not interfere with those made by CVC researchers. Following an appeal, the US Court of Appeals in 2018 affirmed that Broad Institute's patents were separately patentable and didn't overlap with what CVC claimed.
[10]
Then the USPTO initiated a second interference proceeding in 2019 covering 10 CVC CRISPR patents and 13 Broad Institute patents and one Broad patent application.
This second CVC-backed proceeding concluded on Monday with the USPTO's Patent, Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issuing a decision
[11]PDF
that sides with the Broad Institute and against CVC.[12]Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry awarded to boffins studying complex systems, organic catalysts
[13]You heard the latest Chinese CRISPRs? They are real: Renegade bio-boffin did genetically modify baby twins
[14]London's Francis Crick Institute will house 1,250 cancer-fighting boffins
[15]Scientists splice mammoth genes into unsuspecting elephant
"This decision once again confirmed Broad’s patents were properly issued," the Broad Institute said in [16]a statement . "As the PTAB and US federal courts have repeatedly established, the claims of Broad’s patents to methods for use in eukaryotic cells, such as for genome editing, are patentably distinct and not reasonably expected from results of biochemical 'test tube' experiments."
The University of California, Berkeley, expressed unhappiness with the ruling, which doesn't affect more than 40 other CRISPR-related patents in the US, as well as patents in other countries.
"The University of California is disappointed by the PTAB’s decision and believes the PTAB made a number of errors," the university said in [17]a statement . "CVC is considering various options to challenge this decision."
[18]
The Broad Institute patents at issue are also currently being challenged by biotech firms Toolgen and Sigma-Aldrich. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/23/us_committee_greenlights_crisprcas9_human_cancer_cell_trials/
[2] https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/crispr-timeline
[3] https://youtu.be/Ssq8wHAx4nE?t=13
[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02420-x
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.broadinstitute.org/files/shared/osap/pdf/US8697359.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/interference_proceedings
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.scribd.com/document/561762623/106-115-Decision-on-Priority
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/07/nobel_physics_chemistry/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/22/first_genetically_modified_twins/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/02/first_glimpses_inside_the_francis_crick_institute/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/23/scientists_splice_mammoth_genes_into_elephant/
[16] https://www.broadinstitute.org/crispr/journalists-statement-and-background-crispr-patent-process
[17] https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/28/u-s-patent-appeal-board-rules-against-university-of-california/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yh7594xn4giRntiIAZSFAAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
msobkow
It sounds to me like the Broad patents build on what UC Berkeley et. al. published earlier, and really is a seperately patentable item. They might owe UC Berkeley et. al. royalties on their work as incorporated by Broad's patents, but isn't that how the patent system is supposed to work - by licensing and building on prior art to create new things?
Patents
If I'm going to follow this I need CRISPR popcorn.