Editas Medicine announces USPTO reaffirms prior decision on CRISPR/Cas9 patents

Editas Medicine (EDIT) announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reaffirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s previous decision favoring the Broad Institute in the U.S. patent interference involving specific patents for CRISPR/Cas9 editing in human cells between the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier and the Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. The patent interference was on remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit following the CAFC’s May 2025 decision to affirm-in-part and vacate-in-part the PTAB’s prior decision. This action by the PTAB is its third favorable decision determining that Broad was the first to invent the use of CRISPR/Cas9 for gene editing in eukaryotic cells, including human cells. CVC retains the right to appeal the decision to the CAFC. The CRISPR/Cas9 patents at issue are exclusively licensed to Editas Medicine for the development and commercialization of CRISPR/Cas9-based medicines.