Federal Circuit Clarifies Concept Of "Conception"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a significant opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Broad Institute, Inc.,¹ providing fundamental guidance on the legal standard of "conception" in patent law. The decision vacates the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's (PTAB) 2022 interference ruling in the long-running CRISPR-Cas9 patent dispute and remands the case for further consideration under the clarified standard. While interferences are close to becoming obsolete as there are few pending pre-AIA applications still eligible for interference proceedings, the decision is still highly relevant in other post-AIA contexts.

CRISPR-Cas9: A Nobel-Prized Technology