Federal Circuit Orders Re-Evaluation in CRISPR Patent Race (1)

An administrative tribunal used flawed legal reasoning and incorrectly determined Nobel Prize-winning scientists associated with the University of California didn’t conceive of a breakthrough invention that allowed scientists to use gene-editing technology to modify animal cells, the Federal Circuit ruled Monday.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred by “focusing almost entirely” on “perceived experimental difficulties and related statements of doubt” expressed by the California scientists, and thus erroneously failed to credit them with conceiving the CRISPR-Cas9 system, which competing scientists at the Broad Institute got to work on mouse cells in October 2012, according to a precedential opinion written ...