CRISPR Companies Form Pact To Defend, Cross-License Gene Editing Patents

Three CRISPR/Cas9 patent owners and four companies that license the intellectual property – CRISPR, Intellia, Caribou and ERS – signed a formal agreement to protect their patent rights and cross-license necessary IP while a patent interference proceeding is ongoing.

Four companies working with the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 – CRISPR Therapeutics AG, Intellia Therapeutics Inc., Caribou Biosciences Inc. and ERS Genomics Ltd. – entered into an agreement with each other and with the three owners of their intellectual property to manage the patent prosecution work, share the associated costs and cross-license necessary IP.

The patent owners – the Regents of the University of California (UC), Emmanuelle Charpentier and the [University of Vienna] – are embroiled in a patent interference proceeding at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) versus the holders of another set of CRISPR IP – Harvard University and its Broad Institute, which licensed their patents to Editas Medicine Inc

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