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Science:CRISPR Patent War Highlights Issues in Granting Widely Protected Patents

Release time:

2017-11-27 14:34

Arti Rai, a law professor at Duke University, and Robert Cook-Deegan, a biotechnology professor at Arizona State University, talk about the patent wars over gene editing in a paper at the Intellectual Property Policy Forum. They argue that in some property disputes, the court should have more consideration than the first inventor.

In the case of technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, they claim that some ideas (and rights) should be given to the public as the beneficiaries of future research related to such technologies. The related paper was published in the November 17, 2017 issue of Science Journal under the title "Racing for academic glory and patents: Lessons from CRISPR".

　　

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CRISPR-Cas9 is a cutting-edge gene editing technology. Given that many researchers are using it to conduct gene editing research, it has been in the news. But another reason it has been widely reported is that the two sides are claiming they invented it. The two parties are the University of California and the Broad Institute. It is said that because of the existence of licensing rights, patent rights will generate a large amount of revenue for the ultimate winners of this patent war.

As Rai and Cook-Degan point out, patent wars such as these have been going on for decades, thanks to the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. The Baidu Act allows entities to obtain patents for the results of federally funded research work. In this CRISPR patent war, both parties have received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and have applied for patents, but the timing of the applications is unclear. But also as these two authors point out, it is the rights of the public that should not be lost or ignored in legal disputes. If one side wins this patent war, it should try to control who can use this gene editing technology and how. In cases where such full ownership is granted to an entity, the courts may hinder genetic research in a harmful way. What happens if a group of researchers is making progress in eliminating a genetic disease but is slow to do so because they are unable to obtain a patent license? Innocent people may be harmed by the court's decision. The solution, the authors suggest, is for the courts in these cases to grant patents that are not broadly protected, but rather narrowly protected, which gives patent holders some, but not all, rights, thus creating a more open system for cutting-edge technologies.

News source:http://news.bioon.com/article/6713192.html

This news was re-edited and reorganized by the Huaxun team and added analytical comments.