本帖最后由 sunsong7 于 2015-4-23 11:43 编辑 4 a; f9 ^+ T; f3 Q" G; h A
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导读：在上周一递交的申请中，加州的公立大学系统要求专利局重新考虑去年MIT/Harvard Broad研究所获得的十项专利，并称这些专利应该属于他们。如果专利局批准这项赢者通吃的“专利干涉”程序，那表示一方将获得这项基因编辑系统的所有权利。
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6 G+ q2 D& k; n4 ~4 V" }" W日前，加州大学已经要求美国专利和商标局（U.S. Patent & Trademark Office）决定究竟是谁发明了强大的基因编辑工具CRISPR。CRISPR不断涌现的研究价值和商业价值让这场专利大战越来越扣人心弦。1 m& K4 Z% |& \7 b
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在上周一递交的申请中，加州的公立大学系统要求专利局重新考虑去年MIT/Harvard Broad研究所获得的十项专利，并称这些专利应该属于他们。
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- a# t) X* I# J9 L如果专利局批准这项赢者通吃的“专利干涉（patent interference）”程序，那表示，Broad研究所或者加州大学（连同两个共同申请者）中的一方将获得这项基因编辑系统的所有权利。
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y$ V0 N9 H4 Z; B, _; @/ y2012年，加州大学生物学家Jennifer Doudna与法国微生物学家mmanuelle Charpentier在《科学》杂志上首次公开发表了CRISPR编辑技术。然而，2014年，Broad研究所的科学家张锋提交了他的实验室笔记本后证明了CRISPR是他发明的，并获得了专利。" H+ v: V7 `$ W
' }: F G2 S7 h9 n8 o全球专利质量中心主任Greg Aharonian说：“这场战争涉及到很多利益和风险，因为非常昂贵、具有争议。根据现在的first to file规则，专利权属于第一个递交专利申请的人。这样来说，Doudna和Charpentier于2012年5月就递交了专利申请，比张锋早7个月，相对更容易获胜。但是由于这项发明的日期，该案件正按照较老版本的first to file规则进行，即谁能够证明自己是第一个发明了CRISPR，谁就获得专利。”# j! H3 O3 d, t5 R S% K. n% \! W
1 [3 @( H2 u+ n一些专家表示，CRISPR的专利问题正在减缓它的商业化过程，孟山都的全球生物技术副总裁Tom Adams表示，在真正弄清楚该技术的知识产权问题前，他们很难进行更多的应用。如果产品或者治疗被耽误，这场备受瞩目的法律斗争最终可能会反应出大学不好的一面。毕竟，他们通常是使用公共税收或者慈善基金等从事研究和发明工作。
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这场竞争涉及巨大的利益，除了有可能会获得学术最高荣誉诺贝尔奖外，更是包含着不可估量的商业利益。近几年，关于CRISPR技术的科学出版物数量不断飞涨，今年可能会超过1100项。( C0 z2 a0 h I+ f; j
2 T$ u: t) g) X6 A# M这两年张锋不断在《细胞》、《自然》等杂志上发表与CRISPR相关的突破成果，也开了自己的公司，他的成就是有目共睹的。但是这两位女神不仅获得了2015生命科学突破奖，还入选了时代周刊2015全球最具影响力人物。
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一方能力无可否认的学术界大牛，一方是更受“官方认可”的两大女神，这项专利最终花落谁家，我们拭目以待吧。( Y- m) o- t% ~4 q
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关于这场专利大战的背后故事，可阅读《CRISPR：世纪最重磅的生物技术，究竟是谁该拥有它？》
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CRISPR Patent Fight Now a Winner-Take-All MatchLab notebooks could determine who was first to invent a revolutionary gene-editing technology. * u7 W7 c' h' [+ }# Q+ v: s2 n9 Y1 E
In a legal maneuver with billion-dollar implications, the University of California has asked the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to decide who was first to invent a powerful gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9. In a request filed Monday, the regents of California’s public university system asked the patent agency to reconsider ten patents issued starting last year to the MIT/Harvard Broad Institute, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, saying the hugely valuable rights should belong to them. The technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, acts as a kind of molecular scissors, cutting and replacing DNA letters in an organism’s genome with exquisite precision and ease. The technique is revolutionizing the study of species from mice to potatoes, and is likely to open powerful new avenues in gene therapy to treat human disease as well (see “Genome Surgery”). If the patent office approves it, the request for a “patent interference,” as the process is known, sets up a winner-takes-all challenge in which either the Broad Institute, or the University of California and two co-petitioners, including the University of Vienna, will come away with all the rights to the gene-editing system, leaving their rival with nothing. “Expect this battle to be very expensive, very contentious, given the stakes involved,” says Greg Aharonian, director of the Center for Global Patent Quality, which works on patent issues. “I can see many hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent.” The CRISPR-Cas9 editing technology was publicly described in the journal Science in 2012 by Jennifer Doudna, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier. But Feng Zhang, a scientist at the Broad Institute, was first to win a patent on the technique after submitting lab notebooks he says prove he invented it first (see “Who Owns the Biotech Discovery of the Century?”). 
The system uses a cutting protein, Cas9, attached to a short RNA molecule that guides it to precise locations in a genome. Already, scientists have used it to disable HIV, cure muscular dystrophy in mice, and make wheat that’s resistant to crop diseases. Under current rules, known as “first to file,” patent rights go to whoever submits a patent application first. That would mean an easy victory for Doudna and Charpentier, because their earliest application is dated May 2012, seven months before Zhang’s. But because of the dates of the discoveries, the case is being carried out under older “first to invent” rules, where the winner is whoever is able show—by any means—they were first to make an invention work, or simply conceive of it. “That person gets the patent,” says Aharonian. Some experts say the confusion around CRISPR patents is slowing down commercial efforts. Tom Adams, vice president of global biotechnology at Monsanto, says his company had begun working with the technology to create plants with useful traits, but remained reluctant to employ it widely. “It’s a very complicated set of inventions,” says Adams. “Until we understand the intellectual property it’s hard to do much.” If products or treatments are delayed, the high-profile legal fight could end up reflecting badly on the universities, who all used public tax dollars or philanthropic gifts to make the inventions. UC Berkeley’s technology transfer office declined to comment, citing the legal case, as did Doudna. A spokesperson for the Broad Institute, Paul Goldsmith, said that Broad has made “repeated efforts and trips since the beginning of 2013 to resolve this situation outside the legal system.” Other technology disputes have been resolved by creating patent pools which offer wide access to basic innovations, or via cross-licensing. But that hasn’t happened yet with CRISPR-Cas9, precisely because it’s not clear who really owns the key rights. “It would be mutually beneficial to develop as many products as possible with the technology, because it’s the products that will generate the revenue,” says Dan Voytas, a gene-editing researcher at the University of Minnesota. “With CRISPR, it’s still anyone’s guess how it’s going to work out.” The patent dispute started last April when Zhang, a scientist at the Broad, appeared as the lone inventor on a broad patent covering CRISPR-Cas9. To win it, he filed a declaration with the patent office saying he’d invented the idea on his own and offered lab notebooks to back up the claim. Zhang told MIT Technology Review in December that other evidence, like grant applications and correspondence, could offer further proof. But lawyers for UC Berkeley, in counterclaims filed with the patent office this week, say pages and diagrams from Zhang’s lab notebooks show only some related experiments, and don’t prove he invented the system. “Dr. Zhang is wrong,” they conclude. Their conclusions rely, in part, on a technical analysis provided to the patent office by Dana Carroll, a gene-editing expert at the University of Utah. (A copy of the interference request is here, not including more than 100 exhibits.) Broad says it will stick to its position. “It’s hardly shocking that Berkeley’s lawyers support Berkeley’s claim,” says Broad lawyer Ellen Law. “In fact, Dr. Zhang’s notebooks make it clear his invention of CRISPR-Cas9 dates back to 2011.” Both Zhang and Doudna devote substantial time and effort to supporting and publicizing CRISPR. Doudna stars in an explanatory video being passed around social media sites, while Zhang’s lab has set up a website and made laboratory materials widely available to other scientists. The stakes involved are huge. Not only does a Nobel Prize for gene editing seem likely, but several heavily financed startups have been created to start developing gene-therapy treatments. Zhang is involved in Editas Medicine, Doudna’s startup is called Caribou Biosciences, and Charpentier is a founder of CRISPR Therapeutics. The number of scientific publications on the technique has also been skyrocketing, and is likely to surpass 1,100 this year. Ryan Honick, a spokesman for the patent office, says interference proceedings are decided by a special board of examiners, which hears evidence in about 100 cases a year. The process can take as much as two years to resolve, he says. Overall, the patent office approves about 300,000 patents annually. Interferences have helped to decide control over some of the most lucrative inventions ever, including the telephone, the sewing machine, and television. In 1885, a competitor managed to strip Thomas Edison of a patent on a lightbulb with a paper filament, although by that time Edison had invented a better one. Similarly, given the pace of innovation in gene editing, today’s legal fights could end up serving little purpose. Improved versions of CRISPR-Cas9 have already been invented, and entirely new methods are likely. | 
发表于 2015-4-23 11:40
发表于 2015-4-23 15:02
