Latest Nobel Prize Seems to Favor UC in CRISPR Litigation

From the Nobel committee:

7 October 2020

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 to

Emmanuelle Charpentier, Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany

Jennifer A. Doudna, University of California, Berkeley, USA

“for the development of a method for genome editing”

Genetic scissors: a tool for rewriting the code of life

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true...

Full release at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/press-release/

From Science Magazine on the most recent wrinkle in the CRISPR litigation:

...The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruled on 10 September that a group led by the Broad Institute has “priority” in its already granted patents for uses of the original CRISPR system in eukaryotic cells, which covers potentially lucrative applications in lab-grown human cells or in people directly. But the ruling also gives the UC group, which the court refers to as CVC because it includes the University of Vienna and scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, a leg up on the invention of one critical component of the CRISPR tool kit...

Excerpt from https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/latest-round-crispr-patent-battle-has-apparent-victor-fight-continues (9-11-2020)