The Download: CRISPR in court, and the police’s ban-skirting AI

The CRISPR patents are back in play. Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier will get another chance to show they ought to own the key patents on what many consider the defining biotechnology invention of the 21st century. The pair shared a 2020 Nobel Prize for developing the gene-editing system, which is already being used to treat various disorders. But when US patent rights were granted in 2014 to Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the decision set off a bitter dispute in which hundreds of millions of dollars—as well as scientific bragging rights—are at stake. Read the full story. —Antonio Regalado To read more about CRISPR, why not take a look at: + Charpentier and Doudna announced they wanted to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe last year. Read the full story. + How CRISPR will help the world cope with climate change. Read the full story. + The US has approved C ... Read full article.