This is an archived file from the Spring 2022 version of the course.
See the current course website for a more recent version.

Update: CRISPR Patent Ruling

USPTO has made a ruling in the CRISPR patent dispute we talked about yesterday!

The ruling is in favor of MIT/Harvard (Broad Institute), determining that they have priority in CRISPR-Cas9 system for editing eukaryotic cells, over the CVC (this is the case name for the Berkeley/University of Vienna assignees of the Doudna/Charpentier patent) patent. (Although this ruling is now in effect, I doubt this well be the end of things, and suspect the CVC lawyers are looking for ways to appeal.)

You can read the full ruling here: Decision on Priority 37 C.F.R. ยง 41.125(a). It is quite fascinating reading, with lots of quotes from emails between the scientists and scans from lab notebooks (see pages 30-31 for a nice sketch for tracrRNA and Cas9 cleaving).

Update: Jacob Sherkow’s twitter thread provides a great explanation of the whole episode and latest ruling (and contrary my doubts above, thinks further appeals from CVC are unlikely).