More allegations emerge in CRISPR patent dispute

In a document filed this week with the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board concerning a patent interference related to CRISPR/ Cas9 gene editing IP, the University of California claimed scientists working at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard relied on a UC publication to develop the technology.

According to the opposition document, UC said a former student of Broad's Feng Zhang claimed in a February 2015 email to the University of California Berkeley's Jennifer Doudna that Zhang's team began using CRISPR/Cas9 in eukaryotic cells only after seeing a paper Doudna co-authored that describes the technology. "We did not work it out before seeing your paper," the student wrote, adding that he believes Zhang has misstated and overstated his claims to affect the patent examiner's decision. ...