The University of California has turned to the U.S. appeals court based in Washington, D.C., in a dispute with the Broad Institute over who owns the patents for the gene-editing tool known as CRISPR, says The Verge. “This means the heated battle over who owns one of the most revolutionary biotech inventions of our time will likely continue for months or even years from now,” the report says.
The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled that patents held by Broad are sufficiently different than those requested by UC-Berkeley and that the Broad patents stand, said The Verge. UC-Berkely believes the patents overlap and wants the appeals court to overturn the patent board’s ruling.
CRISPR’s potential is limitless because it speeds up genetic modification. “The CRISPR patents are estimated to be worth billions of dollars. And that’s why the legal battle has been so heated,” said The Verge. The institutions have battled for years already over ownership of the technology. Berkeley researchers were the first to publish scientific papers about CRISPR and to file for a patent on gene editing. But Broad, which published its own work, asked for expedited handling of its application and was awarded a patent in 2014 ahead of Berkeley. The university cried foul and the legal fight began.