In a legal brief , one - sentence decision on Wednesday , the US patent office turn over the patent for the cistron blue-pencil technology CRISPR - Cas9 to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT , finding that UC Berkeley had not lay the groundwork for one of the most authoritative scientific breakthroughs of this century .
A US Patent Office appeal board govern that there was “ no incumbrance in fact . ” In other words , the panel found that the two political party ’ claims that they each fabricate the CRISPR - Cas9 factor editing system do n’t in reality overlap .
UC Berkeley argued that seminal 2012 body of work by biochemist Jennifer Doudna pave the way for using CRISPR to genetically direct animal DNA , by revealing that bacterial immune systems employed a organisation ( dubbed CRISPR ) that can be repurposed to easy and precisely edit factor . The Broad Institute foresee that Feng Zhang ’s 2013 discovery — adapting CRISPR to organise industrial plant , animal and human cells — occurred severally . The battle , in other Son , was over who came up with the original formula that lead to using CRISPR - Cas9 to cut mammalian DNA . The patent of invention entreaty board found that Doudna and Zhang ’s recipes were not really for the same thing — Zhang ’s work was not the “ obvious ” extension of Doudna ’s , as Berkeley argue , but a separate ( and therefore patentable ) discovery .
The question now is how the letters patent office ruling will touch the biotech industry , and the development of a applied science that many trust willcure diseases , curbworld hunger , endpesticide useand saveendangered specie .
The CRISPR patent conflict , which began in 2014 , put front and center the argument over how patents can touch on scientific progress . Scientists do n’t always implement patents for their employment , and some never charge for patents at all . But in other instance , patentsimpede researchby making new technologies either unavailable or prohibitively expensive .
“ This doubt has been of particular worry for the biological sciences , where production and substitution of biologic ‘ research tools ’ are significant for ongoing scientific progress , ” a group of scientists write inNature Biotechnologyback in 2009 . “ It is well known that biologic scientists report increasing difficulty associated with memory access to research tools . ”
The Broad Institute has granted an sole licence to the pharmaceutic party Editas Medicine for therapeutic applications of CRISPR - Cas9 , as well as non - undivided licenses for other applications toGE Healthcare , Monsantoand German drug - developerEvotec . Broad ’s letters patent accolade means that the institution will retain the exclusive right to decide who is allowed to use this groundbreaking technology . It ’s unclear what will happen to Intellia Therapeutic and CRISPR Therapeutics , two companies that licensed CRISPR - Cas9 engineering from Berkeley . In the aftermath of the news program on Wednesday , the stock prices ofboth companiesfell by more than10 pct .
Broad has said that it will allow pedantic researcher to go forward using the technology for free . But companies will haveto payfor the rightfield to expend the gene - editing technique .
“ Over the next few long time there will be many patent egress in the CRISPR field to many institutions , ” the Broad Institute say in a statement after the decision . “ We consider CRISPR should continue to be useable to the global scientific biotic community to advance our reason of the biology and treatment of human disease , and to avail put down the groundwork for a young generation of therapies . ”
At present , the US Patent Office has emerge about 50 letters patent connected to the CRISPR system . Of those , 14 are have by Broad or affiliated groups . Berkeley did not challenge patents the office had awarded to other insane asylum , which mostly extend narrow and more specific CRISPR creation .
In the end , the CRISPR - Cas9 battle may not matter all that much — or it may be the first of many patent battles to come . Since CRISPR - Cas9 ’s discovery , researchers have discovered many alternatives to it that may meander up beingsuperior . For instance in 2015 , the Broad Institute announced a second CRISPR system , CRISPR - Cpf1 and last May , Chinese researchers publisheda controversial paperon NgAgo , an entirely new system that they said can also be used to edit mammalian DNA .
In a group discussion call with reporters , Doudna said that while she disagreed with the conclusion , she feel bright it would not interfere with the gait of advancement .
“ From the scientific residential district , I think we are pass to see the technology continue at gait , ” she said . “ This decisiveness will not affect the pace . ”
In a statement , Berkeley said it “ respect ” the decision , but maintain that Doudna and her European collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier were the first to invent the CRISPR system . An charm of the decision is likely .
For Berkeley , the biggest consequence may be that the conclusion reshapes the account of CRISPR . Doudna and Charpentier — two char — are within the scientific residential area wide see as CRISPR ’s pioneers . For their work , they acquire the $ 3 millionBreakthrough Prizein the life sciences in 2015 , the $ 500,000 Gruber Genetics Prize in 2015 , and the $ 450,000Japan Prizein 2017 .
Now , however , the US patent of invention bureau has decided the CRISPR origin story has a different bent . At least according to official records , Broad ’s Feng Zhang will go down in history as the scientist who invent the form of CRISPR poise to revolutionize the world .
CRISPRScience
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