The US Patent Trial and Appeals Board recently ruled that a group of researchers were the first to "conceive" of a genome editing process using CRISPR in 2012, despite competing researchers documented the same idea 7 months earlier. In a new paper published in The CRISPR Journal, Professor Jacob Sherkow breaks down the conception requirement, the patent decision, and the further effects of this case on CRISPR technology and routine science.
Read the full text of "Immaculate Conception? Priority and Invention in the CRISPR Patent Dispute" online.