Marks & Clerk successfully defend Tuschl I patent in European opposition proceedings

Marks & Clerk successfully defended the European “Tuschl I” patent (EP 1309726) on behalf of the patentees during oral proceedings held in Munich. The patent was upheld by the European Patent Office (EPO) in the face of three oppositions.

The Tuschl I patent is generally regarded as covering a key aspect of the RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism, and is important in the clinical development of RNAi therapeutics.

The Tuschl I ’726 patent names as inventors Professors Tuschl, Zamore, Bartel, and Sharp, and is jointly owned by the University of Massachusetts, the Max Planck Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for work in the field of RNAi, and the technology allows targeted downregulation of specific genes in cells, thereby preventing expression of disease-causing genes.

Gareth Williams, Partner at Marks & Clerk, comments: “We are delighted with the result on behalf of our clients, and are pleased that the EPO have recognised the contribution of the inventors to the state of the art. Intellectual property rights are essential to ongoing research and development of further discoveries, and we are privileged to be involved with this pioneering patent in the exciting field of RNAi.”.

 

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For more information contact your usual Marks & Clerk attorney. Alternatively, contact either Gareth Williams at gwilliams@marks-clerk.com or Barbara Fleck at bfleck@marks-clerk.com.

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