Broad Institute Crispr: Epo Patent Revocation Lessons for Claiming Priority to Provisional Applications

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Citation: Vol. 45 No. 1
• Publication year: 2020
• Author: D. Benjamin Borson
• topic: Patent law,Intellectual Property

Broad Institute CRISPR: EPO Patent Revocation Lessons for Claiming Priority to Provisional Applications

D. Benjamin Borson

Borson Law Group P.C.

SUMMARY

This article provides a brief summary of the revocation by the EPO of EP 2,771,468 (EP '468 patent). The EP '468 patent is drawn to use of CRISPR technology for gene editing in eukaryotic cells. The EP '468 patent named The Broad Institute, MIT, and Harvard College as Applicants. The patent was opposed by Novozymes A/S, CRISPR Therapeutics GG and others.

The EP '468 patent claimed priority to 11 US provisional patent applications. The 11 provisional applications named 4 common inventors, and for 4 other provisional applications, an additional inventor was named from the Rockefeller University.

Rockefeller University was not a named Applicant of the EP patent application. The EP patent application claimed priority to all 11 US provisional applications.

After entry in the EP Regional Phase, the Opposition Division (OD) of the EPO issued a formal opinion, in which the claims were found to lack novelty or inventive step because the OD found that...