Have you made a groundbreaking invention with possible human therapeutic application?
- Validate your discovery in a eukaryotic/mammalian model and file the patent application ASAP with that data.
- When your discovery becomes public but still needs such validation, others will be expending significant resources, and watching you closely, racing to make and file first on the discovery with that validation data.
- CRISPR patent challenges have been ongoing and could continue well into the future. On one side are patents which include inventors Doudna and Charpentier (parties: University of California/Berkeley, University of Vienna and Charpentier). On the other side are patents which include inventor Zhang (parties: Broad Institute, Harvard, MIT). Reducing the dispute to its simplest terms, it is about who first invented CRISPR for eukaryotic cells. The first disclosures and filings by Doudna and Charpentier et al. were made using in vitro and prokaryotic models.
- The US dispute is taking place in patent interference proceedings which are no longer relevant for patents filed in the first inventor to file system. Nevertheless, the guidance on validating your discovery in a human relevant model ASAP remains on point.
- Minimize your risk of having to deal with a patent dispute about whether your patent covers human therapeutic applications by prioritizing obtaining this data and filing first to beat your competition.
- Also, while your validation research progresses, be disciplined about what you’re disclosing to others.
