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UC group asks for reversal of CRISPR patent decision

July 26, 2017 10:26 PM UTC

The Regents of the University of California, the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier submitted an appellate brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in its appeal of a February ruling regarding CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. The UC group is seeking reversal of a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision terminating an interference proceeding that could have blocked a patent held by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

On Feb. 15, PTAB issued a ruling of no interference and found that a UC patent application covers distinct subject matter from the Broad Institute's IP, and determined that each is patentable separately. In April, UC filed its appeal and said it expects to "establish definitively" that its scientists were the first to engineer the gene editing technology for use in all environments (see BioCentury Extra, Feb. 15 & April 23)...