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US PTO rules against Univ of California, argues that Broad Inst invented CRISPR
- dluan 5y agoIt seems that in determining who first 'invented' CRISPR, the PTO has gone into lab notebooks as far back as 2012. https://twitter.com/jsherkow/status/1498413788994940928/photo/1 https://twitter.com/jsherkow/status/1498413788994940928/phot...
- mjfl 5y agothat's not too far back, relative to the discovery of Cas9 gene editing...
- ranger207 5y agoWhen I did some undergrad research, the professor was very careful to specify that lab notebooks were essentially legal records of what you worked on and when. It's interesting to see that actually in use
- jamestimmins 5y agoI've read similar things about lab notebooks at Bell Labs, which certainly makes sense given the value of the IP they were creating there (among other things, the first transistor was invented there).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Fomite 5y agoThis is hugely important. It comes up rarely, but when it does, it's essential. Like millions of dollars, people's careers essential. For things like this, or scientific misconduct cases.
- dekhn 5y agoSome ~20 years ago, my professor suggested we not only sign and date the notebook, but hash the contents and publish the hash to the new york times. I'm told this in some way resembles the blockchain.
- Traster 5y agoJust stick a cronjob in to mint an NFT of it nightly.
- cma 5y agoIt is less relevant now for patents after the move from first to invent to first to publish/file (happened after crispr).
- s1artibartfast 5y agoWhy wasn't this simply based on first to file? I thought the PTO moved away from the conception standard to a disclosure one? Board was also first to file.
- jordanpg 5y agoThe first-to-file provisions apply to applications filed on or after March 16, 2013. These were filed well before that date. Under the old first-to-invent paradigm, when there is a question of fact concerning who invented first, the USPTO adjudicates with an "interference" proceeding, which is what this is.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoThanks, I knew it had been a while, but I guess not as long as I thought!
- throwthere 5y agoMore background— https://www.broadinstitute.org/crispr/journalists-statement-and-background-crispr-patent-process https://www.broadinstitute.org/crispr/journalists-statement-...
- cracker_jacks 5y agoYes, I am certain the background this particular website provides will be super objective and unbiased.....
- s1artibartfast 5y agoWhy wasn't this simply based on first to file? I thought the PTO moved away from the discovery standard to a disclosure one?
- vlovich123 5y agoPresumably that law change only applies to patents filed after a certain date and this one precedes that.
- DannyBee 5y agoThese patent applications predate that change. This is an interference proceeding, which was the mechanism for resolving priority before first-to-file
- aluminum96 5y agoOnly somewhat on-topic, but this is the latest in a long line of cases which transfer IP from universities to corporations on various grounds. For a particularly representative previous example, see Stanford v Roche [1], in which SCOTUS found that a patent originated with the individual researcher and not his institution, and was therefore transferrable to other private entities with whom the researcher had agreements. I, for one, believe that we should enact stronger protections to ensure that research partially performed at publicly-funded labs remains in the hands of the public. In particular, I think that the Bayh–Dole Act should be strengthened to vest the patent with the institution directly, and to create a default presumption that the institution owns the IP. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_v._Roche_Molecular_Systems,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_v._Roche_M....
- thedingwing 5y agoWhile the Broad institute is private, it is a non-profit that is tightly affiliated with MIT and Harvard. To me, this is different than a patent getting transferred to a multinational pharmaceutical corporate.
- aluminum96 5y agoI didn't know they were a nonprofit. In that case, my OP is pretty off-topic for this case.
- butner 5y agoThe Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson attempts to chronicle this in detail. The narrative has UC/Doudna making the fundamental contributions. And that the leap to human cells was "trivial" made by Broad/Zhang. Anyone have any perspective on how they were characterized?
- ackbar03 5y agoWhile informative, I think it was mentioned in the book that Doudna was the one who asked him to write it about her, so I think it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I thought isaacson did a pretty good job in trying to make it objective, but it does read a bit like PR at times which is kind of unfortunate for a topic on science. I guess it's been the same way for other historical discoveries as well, especially given the economic stakes involved. I find self promotion a bit debasing but it seems to be important of society like it or not.
- mortigi 5y agoThat's a generous way of putting it. Just the first chapter nearly had me putting the book down as it read like a press release written on behalf of the scientist. It gets less painful and I understand that authors choose to write books about subjects that interest them but it feels like there's a definite difference in objectivity from his previous works.
- temp20160423 5y agoThe chapters on Watson are super interesting. If Isaacson had written the book primarily about Watson, it likely would've been at the same level of Steve Jobs.
- yawboakye 5y agothis is the first book by isaacson that i read and i doubt i'd like to read any other. the bias in the narration, while duly acknowledged, forces him to paint other people (aka other side) so monstrously—at times—that it's impossible to take his criticisms seriously. that said i liked quite a few people aside from doudna (for example i think emmanuelle charpentier is badass and quite rightly the sort of hero we need—working with elegance and loads of fun).
- qualudeheart 5y agoSounds economically big, in terms of who gets to monetize CRISPR ip.
- ramraj07 5y agoA big maybe at best. CRISPR might not achieve the humanity changing effect it might have any time soon.
- qualudeheart 5y agoIt will be a slow takeoff like AI. It takes time for business applications to emerge. This is how all new tech works. The businesses built around them have to grow and many will fail.
- asdff 5y agoIt's still making a ton of money as its an excellent tool in the molecular biology lab.
- refurb 5y agoConsidering Doudna (one of the labs in question) also started Caribou Biosciences now worth $600M, yes, there is a lot at stake. https://www.google.com/search?q=NASDAQ:+CRBU https://www.google.com/search?q=NASDAQ:+CRBU https://www.cariboubio.com/about/#leadership https://www.cariboubio.com/about/#leadership
- Gatsky 5y agoReminiscent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [1] where there were and are ongoing patent disputes for the last 30 years. The highly esteemed Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute, who recently got turfed out of the Whitehouse for being an asshole following testimony by 14 different staffers [2], wrote a highly biased reinvention of history around CRISPR published in Cell [3] which was severely criticised [4,5]. To this day, this highly cited 'review' still does not have a conflict of interest statement. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#Patent_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction#Pate... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lander#Science_Advisor_to_the_President https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lander#Science_Advisor_to... [3] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01705-5 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01705-5 [4] https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/25/why-eric-lander-morphed/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/25/why-eric-lander-morphed/ [5] https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1825 https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1825
- selimthegrim 5y agoThe "Whig History of CRISPR" article [1] by Nathaniel Comfort that Eisen quotes is one of the most jaw-dropping rebuttals I have ever seen of anything ever. When Lander was named by Biden to high office I just sat back and waited for the shoe to drop. [1] https://genotopia.scienceblog.com/573/a-whig-history-of-crispr/ https://genotopia.scienceblog.com/573/a-whig-history-of-cris...
- riemannzeta 5y agoActually, one of the fascinating facts about the history of PCR is that Kary Mullis didn't optimize to make billions on the patent rights. In his Nobel acceptance speech, he reminisces about how a coworker told him to quit his job and start another company before submitting an invention disclosure on PCR, but he didn't do that. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/lecture/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1993/mullis/lect... My friend Ron Cook, who had founded Biosearch, and produced the first successful commercial DNA synthesis machine, was the only person I remember during that summer who shared my enthusiasm for the reaction. He knew it would be good for the oligonucleotide business. Maybe that’s why he believed it. Or maybe he’s a rational chemist with an intact brain. He’s one of my best friends now, so I have to disqualify myself from claiming any really objective judgement regarding him. Perhaps I should have followed his advice, but then things would have worked out differently and I probably wouldn’t be here on the beach in La Jolla writing this, which I enjoy. Maybe I would be rich in Tahiti. He suggested one night at his house that since no one at Cetus had taken it seriously, I should resign my job, wait a little while, make it work, write a patent, and get rich.
- pabs3 5y agoWasn't CRISPR discovered in bacteria rather than invented?
- saran87 5y agoIt was discovered in bacteria but the invention is about how that technique could be used to target a particular section in the genome of your choice.
- diego_moita 5y agoCRISPR is the generic name for a system of proteins and RNA found in bacteria. It was discovered by Francisco Mojica. They all chomp viruses' DNA. Different bacteria have different proteins. Among these proteins the most interesting is the CAS-9, isolated "in vitro" by the teams of Jennifer Doudna and Emanuele Charpentier. They also showed it could be programmed to handle different DNA sequences. Feng Zhang then proceeded to do the same in vivo, with eukaryotes, months after. Doudna and Charpentier filed the application first but the Broad Institute filed it with a express requirement so they were granted first.
- xiphias2 5y agoThis decision came on the same day Intelia published positive results with gene editing, the stock would have jumped much higher without this decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl8sRdXFHlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl8sRdXFHlM https://ir.intelliatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/intellia-and-regeneron-announce-updated-phase-1-data https://ir.intelliatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details...
- olliej 5y agoWhat’s especially irksome here is there use of “but this person got it to work first” as their deciding factor, but at the same time they allow thousands of patents for things with no working example
- qiskit 5y agoDo the researchers who discover/invent ever get a stake in the licensing/patent or do the owners/investors of the lab own the rights to the discovery? Or in a university setting, do the professors/researchers get to own a part of their discovery or are the discoveries owned by universities entirely?
- aaomidi 5y agoThey don't and it's a huge reason why in my opinion innovation has stopped. There's not a huge reward in doing that extra work.
- leemailll 5y agoWhat you said is plain wrong in most places.
- sigstoat 5y agothey get whatever they agreed to when they took the job. which is generally very little, in exchange for a salary not conditioned on patent income.
- robotresearcher 5y agoMany universities have inventor-owns IP policies. This can be a factor when considering job offers.
- diego_moita 5y agoBut this is just the US patent, right? AFAIK, the European patent office already recognizes Charpentier & Doudna as the patent owners.
- riemannzeta 5y agoYes, just in the US, and only one of the sets of patents in the US. This one is about use of CRISPR-Cas9 in a eukaryotic environment specifically. Both parties have some other claims, and ultimately will have to cross-license each other for the technology to develop. Too bad such an important decision is being left to such a small group of university administrators who know very little about how best to grow the technology into successful therapies and technologies at scale!
- cubancorona 5y ago
- riemannzeta 5y agoThis the first-to-invent rule going out with a bang. Under a change in the law in 2013, the UC Regents never would have had the chance to argue that they were entitled to the claims here because Harvard filed first. Actually, they could still argue that Harvard stole (or "derived") the idea from them. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. Under the current law, this interference proceeding never would have happened.
- dsp 5y ago> Harvard filed first UC filed seven months earlier: https://genotopia.scienceblog.com/573/a-whig-history-of-crispr/ https://genotopia.scienceblog.com/573/a-whig-history-of-cris...
- riemannzeta 5y agoUC was first to file some other claims. In the claims that were at issue in this decision, Harvard was first to file. Actually the opinion does a good job explaining some of that. But Harvard is labeled the senior party in the opinion because they were the first to file this set of claims.
- cwkoss 5y agoIt's depressing that any entity can have monopolistic ownership over CRISPR. If someone wins, will they prevent people from using the technique without a hefty licensing fee? How much potential is there for this to slow scientific progress?
- rmbyrro 5y agoIf they couldn't have ownership over their research, they would probably do something else. In such case, how much potential is there for this to slow scientific progress?
- checkyoursudo 5y agoI have done plenty of cognitive science (intelligence, curiosity) research and psychology (personality) research that is unpatantable yet contributing to the pace of scientific progress. I have never considered slowing my research because of "ownership" of this work.
- mhb 5y agoNot exactly a steel man.
- checkyoursudo 5y agoNo, of course. I also don't mean that the parent comment isn't correct. Research velocity would surely slow down, but by how much is pretty unknowable.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoI’ve become convinced that intellectual property restrictions significantly slow innovation. If no one was allowed to own information we’d still have to get things done and work to make a profit. Only once someone figured something out everyone could adopt it right away. Take a look at the landscape of innovation in 3D printers in the 13 years they were for sale under patent and the following 13 years after the patents expired. Innovation absolutely exploded! Instead of one company happy with $25,000 machines we had hackers, hobbyists, and engineers from all over the world working on solving problems and making the machines cheaper. Ten years after the patent expired the price dropped 100x from $25k to $250. Imagine how cheap medical care would be if all the patents on medical imaging equipment expired. If there were no patents the market still provides incentive to innovate as first movers and reputable brands stay competitive. Meanwhile patents allow big slow companies to sit on their rewards and charge high prices with little real innovation. Things would change, sure. Instead of few large investments we would see more frequent smaller investments. But market competition would still work and natural rewards to innovation persist. Only innovation propagates way faster. Intellectual property restrictions are a disaster in my mind. And sadly most people believe some basic fairy tale that we were told without ever caring to research if that story is even remotely true.
- starwind 5y agoUnrelated but can anyone recommend a good, more technical introduction to CRISPR? I read Isaacson's book and I really enjoyed his technical discussion but I really wanted more
- djhcfhvf 5y agoanyone remember when RAND Corp got the patents for what essentially is the IPv4, despite every single discovery and patents being at UC as well? is this a regular pattern?
- tehjoker 5y agoWow, so the judge grants CVC invented CRISPR-Cas9 but grants it to Broad for reducing it to practice in eukaryotic cells. This feels really unfair to me. It is an essential step, but it's also a subset of broad application in what could be the most profitable area.