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Agilent Technologies (New York Stock Exchange:A) intends to appeal the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision invalidating two patents in a CRISPR dispute with Synthego.
Agilent said Thursday that the PTAB reversed the USPTO’s original decision to grant claims targeting the chemically modified synthetic CRISPR guide. RNA.
On Wednesday, Synthego disclosed that PTAB ruled in favor of its motions seeking to invalidate Agilent’s US Patent Nos. 10,337,001 and 10,900,034 in interparty review before PTAB.
Synthego noted that the PTAB decision invalidates all claims in Agilent’s patents, which were directed to targeting RNAs that had at least one 2′-O-methyl modification (patent 10,900,034) and targeting RNAs that had certain modifications within of the 5 nucleotides of its 5′ and/or 3′ end (patent 10,337,001), plus methods of using said modified guide RNAs for CRISPR gene editing.
“The ruling confirms that the invalidated Agilent patents attempted to reclaim well-known modifications to guide RNAs that were already taught in the prior art,” Synthego’s CEO said in the May 17 press release.
Agilent said it disagrees with the PTAB’s non-patentability decision in view of prior art previously considered by the USPTO during its primary review.
Agilent noted that its patents describe the synthesis and testing of hundreds of chemically modified CRISPR guide RNA molecules that have been shown to improve the efficiency of CRISPR-based gene editing.
Prior to the work done by the Agilent inventors, it was not known whether the many chemical modifications the company made to various long guide RNAs would alter the functionality of the gRNA:Cas enzyme complex, according to Agilent.
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