Federal Appeals Court Orders Reconsideration of CRISPR Patent Dispute

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has revived the long-standing patent dispute over CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology by instructing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to reconsider its 2022 decision that favored the Broad Institute's claim of invention. The court ruled that the PTAB applied the wrong legal standard and failed to properly evaluate evidence regarding the conception of the invention, which was originally developed by Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier of the University of California and the University of Vienna. This ruling does not invalidate the Broad Institute’s patents but requires a fresh review under a corrected legal framework. The decision is viewed as an opportunity to affirm the contributions of Doudna and Charpentier, whose initial discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 system was published in 2012 and recognized worldwide, including with a Nobel Prize. The Broad Institute expressed confidence that the PTAB will ultimately uphold its patent claims, while stakeholders like Editas Medicine emphasized their continued focus on leveraging their CRISPR-related intellectual property for therapeutic development. The dispute highlights the complexities of patent law in determining priority for breakthrough scientific inventions with significant implications for biotechnology and medicine.