Patent Awards Give Berkeley a Needed Gene-Edit Boost

The University of California, Berkeley, is on the board in the ongoing U.S. patent contest over CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, but it’s still behind and it’s not clear it can catch up.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded the school two patents on the technology, one June 19 and one June 12—the first ones it has secured on a technology it asserts its researchers invented. But winning a court battle with the Broad Institute, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University joint venture, likely remains the best way for Berkeley and its partners to find success in the ...