“This is technology that cannot affect just one little drug, it can affect a broad industry,” said Muna Abu-Shaar, founder of Biospark Intellectual Property Law, in Cambridge. “It has meaningful commercial applications.”
CRISPR-Cas9 is a technology that can edit genes more efficiently and more precisely than other methods.
The potential for the technology is vast, ranging from improving plants to curing diseases by replacing DNA.
A group of top researchers met last year to discuss the ethical implications of using CRISPR-Cas9 in humans.
But the question of who should get credit for the discovery is now up in the air. Feng Zhang of MIT and the Broad Institute was awarded a patent for CRISPR-Cas9 in 2014, which has been challenged by Jennifer Doudna, a professor and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
Doudna filed for a patent first, but Zhang and the Broad Institute claim it does not fully describe the process necessary to edit genes.
“We are confident the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) will reach the same conclusion it did initially when it awarded the patent and will continue to recognize the Broad and MIT roles in developing this transformative technology,” said Lee McGuire, a spokesman for the Broad Institute.
UC Berkeley declined to comment.
The procedure itself could take about a year, including roughly eight months of legal jockeying over who should shoulder the burden of proof. Right now, Zhang and the Broad have been declared “the junior party,” meaning they must prove beyond reasonable doubt they invented CRISPR-Cas9. Eventually, each research lab will have to produce their notes showing exactly what work they did, and when.
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