Federal Appeals Court Revives CRISPR Patent Dispute Between Broad Institute and University of California

On May 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a major decision in the ongoing CRISPR-Cas9 patent dispute between the University of California and the Broad Institute135.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had previously awarded priority for the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in eukaryotic cells to the Broad Institute, impacting biotechs like Editas Medicine, which licenses Broad’s patents3.

The Federal Circuit ruled the PTAB erred by conflating the legal standards for conception and reduction to practice, specifically by requiring University of California inventors to prove they knew their discovery would work in eukaryotic cells to establish conception13.

The dispute centers on who first invented the gene-editing application for eukaryotic cells:
Jennifer Doudna’s team (University of California, Berkeley) or Feng Zhang’s team (Broad Institute)15.

The appeals court’s order sends the case back to the PTAB for reconsideration, reviving uncertainty over the control of foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents and raising new questions for gene-editing biotech companies135.

Sources:

1. https://www.mofo.com/resources/insights/250513-federal-circuit-vacates-and-remands

3. https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/appeals-court-reignites-crispr-discovery-row-raising-questions-about-gene-editing-biotech

5. https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/federal-appeals-court-sends-crispr-cas9-patent-case-back-patent-office-reconsideration