USPTO grants new CRISPR-Cas9 patent to University of California

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a new CRISPR-Cas9 patent to the University of California (UC), the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, marking the fifth consecutive week that the USPTO has approved a new patent in their CRISPR portfolio.

CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing tool that can target and modify DNA.

The latest patent, US number 10,428,352, covers “methods of targeting and binding or methods of cleaving a target DNA in a prokaryotic cell using Cas9 protein and single molecule DNA targeting RNAs”.

The patent is related to these methods for use in bacterial cells.

The group's portfolio is expected to reach 18 patents in number by the end of the year, making it the largest group of patents covering CRISPR-Cas9.

Eldora Ellison, lead patent strategist for UC and director at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, said that “the continuous issuance of CRISPR-Cas9 patents to UC adds significant new compositions and methods to our burgeoning portfolio that has quickly become the widest-ranging for the technology”.

Notoriously, the inventorship status of CRISPR-Cas9 has been the subject of a protracted patent dispute between the group, and the Broad Institute, a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

The UC Berkeley group represents a team of researchers including Jennifer Doudna at UC, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Krzysztof Chylinski at the University of Vienna.

In June, the USPTO declared a second interference proceeding which will examine who first invented CRISPR-Cas9 for use in eukaryotic cells.

The interference concerns 12 patents and one application owned by the Broad Institute, and 10 patent applications filed by UC Berkeley.

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