Patent judges aren't scientists

And that's OK, writes Jacob Sherkow, a professor of law at New York Law School.

In the long-running debate over just who deserves credit for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, the sticking point has been whether editing complex cells, which the Broad Institute patented, is a significant advance over editing bacteria, which the University of California did first.

This week, a federal appeals court sided with the Broad, adopting an interpretation of scientific research that rankled many actual scientific researchers. But, according to Sherkow, it's possible that the court got the science wrong and the patent decision right, illustrating "a classic disconnect between the legal standards of patent law and the realities of scientific research."

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