Two Nobel Prize Winners Want To Cancel Their Own CRISPR Patents in Europe

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it's been common for lawyers to try to overturn patents held by competitors by pointing out errors or inconsistencies. But now, in a surprise twist, the team that earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing CRISPR is asking to cancel two of their own seminal patents, MIT Technology Review has learned.

The decision could affect who gets to collect the lucrative licensing fees on using the technology. The request to withdraw the pair of European patents, by lawyers for Nobelists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, comes after a damaging August opinion from a European technical appeals board, which ruled that the duo's earliest patent filing didn't explain CRISPR well enough for other scientists to use it and doesn't count as a proper invention. The Nobel laureates' lawyers say the decision is so wrong and unfair that they have no choice but to preemptively cancel their patents, a scorched-earth tactic whose aim is to prevent the unfavorable legal finding from being recorded as the reason.

"...but on a PCR machine."

[Pseudonymous Powers]

People want to give away their own property? Should be easy, right? BET IT'S NOT!

Re:"...but on a PCR machine."

[test321]

It's not their own property (in full), so it's difficult. She needs the majority owners to agree. The patents are the property of "The regents of the university of California; University of Vienna; Charpentier, Emmanuelle". The last person is one of the two Nobel laureates, so she personally owns a share of the economical rights; but she presumably not majority owner.

For those with spare time:

* the patent https://worldwide.espacenet.co... [espacenet.com] (EP3401400, it's easy to find the other EP2800811)
* list of letters and appeals they submitted to the EPO (European Patent Office) seeking cancellation, see https://register.epo.org/appli... [epo.org]

Hmm...

[fahrbot-bot]

no choice but to preemptively cancel their [CRISPR] patents

Too bad there isn't some sort of tool they could use to edit their patents in-place ... :-)

Re:

[timeOday]

Well, yeah... instead of simply 'overturning' it I'm surprised they aren't allowed to amend it to provide the necessary detail (without restarting the clock on expiration).

Re:Hmm...

[Whateverthisis]

Because the patents were already issued.

The patents are in dispute between Berkely (Doudna) and Charpentier herself (Europe allows her to keep it, whereas US you assign to your university) and her research institute on one side, and the Broad institute and Feng Zhang, which is a joint Harvard/MIT institute. Both groups filed thier patents around the world, and both were issued, but they are different in subtle ways. They are in conflict, so they each filed claims against each others' patents and the dispute got started.

In the US, a big complication came from a rule change in 2013 to the USPTO, from first to invent to first to file. Broad beat Berkely to the filing by 2 weeks, even though under first to invent rules, which Berkely used, they might have won. So under the new rules, Broad won the patent dispute and the Berkely (Doudna/Charpentier) patents were invalidated.

In Europe it's still first to invent, and the Doudna/Charpentier camp have been highlighting their European portfolio as a bright spot. However, being that it's an issued patent under dispute, there's no chance to amend it, and in this review the appeals board at the EU PTO-equivalent said they didn't describe the invention sufficiently to meet the definition of invention. They can't amend an already issued patent, and a judgement like this living on the patent would be very damning, so it's a better strategy to completely withdraw the patents and not live with that judgement against it.

This is a super messy world. And you know what's funny? These patents also have very little value at all. They are for CRISPR/Cas9 (emphasis mine), specifically the Cas9 part of CRISPR. They are now finding literally thousands of other Cas proteins, people are making modifications of Cas9 or new smaller Cas' that are better for delivery, etc. There are alternative CRISPR systems than just Cas9, so this whole thing is just a big drama of people fighting over what they think they have, which is a patent on gene editing, when in reality they mostly have a patent on one shape of scissors, but another shape would work just as well.

Re:

[michaelni]

... and the Broad institute and Feng Zhang, which is a joint Harvard/MIT institute.

And the article is from the MIT Technology Review. So The article talking about Doudna and Charpentier happens to be associated with their competitor. And CRISPR is a multi billion dollar thing in human medicine alone today. I dont know, but id like to hear this story from a more neutral source.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

instead of simply 'overturning' it I'm surprised they aren't allowed to amend it to provide the necessary detail

If "do-overs" are allowed, all patent applications will start using fuzzy language.

There's a reason clarity and full disclosure are required in the initial application.

CRISPR Promises and CRISPR Reality

[Seven Spirals]

Lots of promises and only a couple of wins. It seems they can cure Sickle Cell Anemia with it, but the cure is $2.2M dollars. Some folks also claim to be working on cures for Leber Congenital Amaurosis and Hereditary Transthyretin Amyloidosis using CRISPR. This technology came out in 2015 IIRC and this is it? After all that nearly AI-level-hype and promises we've got one $2.2M cure and possibly two in the pipe? I get lectured every time that "medicine is hard". Yeah, so are a lot of other things that get d

Re:CRISPR Promises and CRISPR Reality

[Pseudonymous Powers]

MEDICAL RESEARCHER: [Closes mouth as exultant expression turns into frown, slowly puts syringe with The Omnicure in it back in pocket of lab coat, walks away forever.]

Re:

[codebase7]

Good. If he's that triggered by some rando on the internet, he didn't need to be injecting anyone with anything. The ultimate cure or not.

Re:

[noisia]

As someone who works in this area, let's just say that the promise of simple tools was oversold. Getting CRISPR tools to work is a little more complicated than first thought

Re:

[Whateverthisis]

I responded to this same post in a much more positive way. But you are entirely correct; it's not exactly "scissors" as advertised, or "programmable" as advertised. The cost and hardship to learn how to master CRISPR is beyond what many people are willing to put into the effort.

Re:CRISPR Promises and CRISPR Reality

[Whateverthisis]

So I can understand your feeling there if you use a very limited amount of information about the field. Also, the road between a published paper and a patent, and actual industrial application and product, is way larger than most people assume.

There are in fact now over 75 clinical trials running in various places [crisprmedicinenews.com], although most in the US. They are targeting genetic diseases mostly, but also cancers, viral diseases, antibacterial diseases etc.

What is not in the invention is how to control the chemistry; there are real risks of off-target edits where it edits in other places on your genome. We have no idea what that does medicinally speaking, so the regulatory and safety risks are extremely real.

In particular, the FDA is very concerned about gene therapies in general. In 2000 an experimental gene therapy trial went forward after much of the science seemed proven, and it resulted in the death of kids [wikipedia.org]. This stopped all gene therapy research for 2 decades, and it only is now coming back. A serious death or side effect can kill this entire new field before it even gets going, so the FDA and all companies involved are being extremely careful.

From a medicinal perspective, we don't really know enough about the genome. what happens when we modify DNA in our bodies, while we're still in our bodies? Does CRISPR float around afterwards and end up in our reproductive organs? What are the ethics of doing this? Are we discussing engineering the species [wikipedia.org]? There is quite a lot to concern ourselves with on the journey from patent to medical value.

that being said, there are a ton of other things going on with CRISPR outside of therapies. Agricultural [tropic.bio] products [thefishsite.com] are becoming [pairwise.com] a reality [fortune.com] and are not considered GMO. Xenotransplantation [technologyreview.com] is closer than ever. And leveraging CRISPR to deploy at-home DNA tests, which are more accurate than the at-home paper strip tests for things like Covid, are in development [sherlock.bio].

The field is actually quite active.

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Thanks for your positive, fact-filled post. I read it and happily followed your links and I'm reading them. There does seem to be more than three items to report on and I'm glad for that. I had high hopes for the "biohackers" who were spreading the bacterium that was key to the "scissors" and back in 2016 it sounded like we were on the cusp of godhood, but hey, I'll take steady-progress and hope, too.

Re:

[Whateverthisis]

It's the technology adoption curve. Also, one thing that is in my opinion a seriously underdiscussed issue in the broader academia field of all science is the sheer volume of hyperbole in peer reviewed papers. Peer review reviews data, but people make up all sorts of stories and claims in the intros that lead to great hype and news articles about science that's "going to change the world!". It makes for great headlines, but the actual grunt work of slogging out turning science into real life products and

Re:

[RobinH]

What exactly have you been working on since 2015 that cured anything? Is it fun to just sit around looking at what other people are trying to invent and shit on it when everything doesn't go perfectly?

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Since 2015? I've closed about 1000 software bugs (in realtime systems mostly, where people can get hurt when things go wrong) helped dozens of different organizations fix problems with their systems, including ones in the medical space (children's hospitals and research organizations mostly). I participate or operate about five open source projects and I've coached a few dozen kids in various skating modalities since 2018.

I'm pretty cool with what I've been up to and after the bullshit way medical "author

Re:

[presidenteloco]

Yeah well the facts are that the death rate in vaccine-denying-weirdo-dominated (short-hand: red) US states was much higher than in all but one high-vaccine and public health measures acceptance rate states.

I would look up the relevant statistical references for you but I can't be bothered since I don't think you would accept them or care as I suspect your thinking methodology is a bit warped and tribal-cult-meme-based rather than rational.

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

Well, you're right. I'd have shot holes in them right away because if CV1984 taught us all anything it's that absolutely any stupid assertion can be backed up with a "study". About 30 seconds later, someone will produce another "study" showing exactly the opposite. So, no, don't bother showing me "studies" that "say" we all should have stay cringing indoors waiting for Uncle Sam and his butt-buddies in Big Pharma to save us.

Instead, why not just go strap on your three masks and happily coerce some childre

Re:

[dfghjk]

Your lack of self-awareness is cute, especially considering how old your ID is. We'll assume senility is the reason you don't appear to know how /. works despite behaving in the same manner you accuse the OP of.