The CRISPR patent fight goes to the tape

The yearslong and bitter brawl over who will get crucial — and potentially lucrative — CRISPR patents could be headed toward a climax, and the University of California has some work to do. A new decision from a government patent board means that UC and its partners will have to prove that their scientists, led by Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley, demonstrated that CRISPR-Cas9 systems could edit DNA in eukaryotes (plant and animal cells, not bacteria or free-floating DNA) before Feng Zhang and colleagues at the Broad Institute. The next phase will likely involve testimony from the researchers themselves and reviews of their lab notebooks as the patent board tries to figure out who invented what and when, with fortunes and, perhaps, Nobel glory on the line.