Nobel Prize winners convince court to revive CRISPR patent dispute

The University of California and the University of Vienna on Monday convinced a U.S. appeals court to revive their bid for patent rights to groundbreaking CRISPR gene-editing technology created by their Nobel Prize-winning scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was a win for the schools in a long-running dispute over CRISPR patent rights with the Broad Institute, a joint venture of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The U.S. Patent Office had previously determined that Broad Institute scientists conceived the technology before Doudna and Charpentier.

The Federal Circuit on Monday said that the office had misapplied federal law on patent conception and sent the case back to the Patent Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board for reconsideration.

A Broad Institute spokesperson said the institute was confident that the board will "again confirm Broad's patents, because the underlying facts have not changed."

The universities' attorney Jeff Lamken of MoloLamken said in a statement that the decision gives the board a new chance to review the evidence and...