USPTO decides – no interference for CRISPR patents
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Patent Trial and Appeal Board handed down its decision, on 15 February 2017, that there is no interference between the patents and patent applications related to CRISPR technology* owned by The Broad Institute and others (Broad) and those owned by the Regents of the University of California Berkeley and others (UC).
Since the USPTO has decided that the subject-matter of Broad’s and UC’s patents and applications do not overlap this brings the interference proceedings to an end. The decision of no interference means that both parties will be free to license their patents to any third party.
UC still has the option to take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
* The CRISPR-Cas9 system ‘CRISPR technology’ is a gene-editing system that can be used to make specific changes to the genetic sequence (DNA) of an organism.
