The University of California, Berkeley, the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier have been granted a third US patent covering the use of CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing technology.

The patent, US 10,113,167, covers the use of RNA to modify a target DNA, where the RNA can be delivered to the target either complexed with Cas9 protein or by genetically modifying cells such that they will express and produce Cas9 inside the cell to form a functional CRISPR–Cas9 complex. These CRISPR–Cas9 methods apply to eukaryotic and cell-free environments.

Despite having three issued patents, the University of California still lags behind its rival the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in terms of intellectual property rights for CRISPR–Cas9 technology in the United States. Patents assigned to the Broad were granted sooner. And, in a recent dispute, a US appeals court affirmed Broad's ownership of a key patent describing the use of CRISPR–Cas9 in eukaryotic cells (Nat. Biotechnol. 36, 1026, 2018).

Despite Broad's dominant position, the University of California has several pending patent applications for CRISPR–Cas9 technology, including an application that was involved in the recent court case. Here, the court ruled that that the University of California's application, which described CRISPR–Cas9 in any cell type and cell-free systems, did not interfere with Broad's eukaryotic patents, meaning both methods could be patentable. The court did not rule on the validity of the patents.

Both the University of California and the Broad have licenced their intellectual property. Yet it remains unclear whether Broad, University of California or other parties “will ultimately have sufficiently strong or comprehensive patent protection to give licensees confidence in their rights to develop CRISPR technology,” said patent attorney Kevin Noonan in his Patent Docs blog.