The CRISPR patent dispute between the University of California, Berkeley, and the Broad Institute is finally over. As almost everyone following the case predicted, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Monday the U.S. patent office’s decision that there was “no interference-in-fact” between UC Berkeley’s patent application and more than a dozen Broad patents. In plain English: Broad researcher Feng Zhang’s CRISPR patents were sufficiently inventive over the UC Berkeley’s patent applications with Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier.

Many scientists disagree with the decision, believing that it fails to comport with how molecular biology is actually practiced. I agree with them. But that doesn’t make the Federal Circuit’s decision wrong. In fact, I think its decision is absolutely correct.

The reason has to do with standards of review — the standards courts use to weigh evidence, limit their authority, and make decisions. Like criminal law’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, standards of review are incrediblyimportant for many legal cases. They’re how much one side needs to prove something and, failing that, who should win.

…continue reading ‘The CRISPR Patent Decision Didn’t Get the Science Right. That Doesn’t Mean It Was Wrong’

Image: By National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from Bethesda, MD, USA – CRISPR-Cas9 Editing of the Genome, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52360100

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