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ARTICLE · 02 MAY 2017

CRISPR: Patent Battles From The US To Europe

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Patent bodies in the US and Europe have issued important decisions in patent battles over the gene-editing technology CRISPR, as Catherine Coombes of HGF reports.

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Catherine Coombes
Catherine Coombes
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Cath Coombes reports in World Intellectual Property Review

Patent bodies in the US and Europe have issued important decisions in patent battles over the gene-editing technology CRISPR, as Catherine Coombes of HGF reports.

Patent battles over the underlying rights for the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology have being playing out across the globe.

On February 15, 2017, the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued its decision in the patent interference proceedings between the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT's patents and those of UC, Berkeley and the University of Vienna. It held that there was no interference in fact, because getting CRISPR technology to work in a eukaryotic environment (instead of outside a cell or a prokaryotic environment) was a separate invention.

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