Given recent decisions, one might be forgiven for thinking that clarity is fast approaching in the CRISPR IP world. Far from it.
The allowance of the University of California’s (UC) US Patent Application 13/842,859 on application of CRISPR/Cas9 with a single guide RNA (sgRNA) and without restriction on the environment of use, plus the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision on interference-in-fact allowing Broad Institute to keep its US patents on use of the same CRISPR system in eukaryotic cells, were both significant milestones.