Patent Ruling Picks Winners In Fight Over Gene-Editing Tool

"In a twist in a long legal dispute over a popular gene-editing tool, U.S. patent authorities ruled that the Broad Institute deserves the credit for inventing a way to use Crispr in plants and animals.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's 84-page decision involves some of the biggest names and institutions in science. It pits Broad -- a partnership including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University -- against the University of California, Berkeley, University of Vienna and the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier.

The ruling, made on Monday, cancels certain patent applications made by the University of California and its partners regarding a Crispr system known as Crispr-Cas9, stating that they failed to provide persuasive evidence that they got the gene-editing technology to work before the Broad group did.

Crispr stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. The term refers to the immune system of bacteria, which likely evolved to ward off attacks by viruses, and to a gene-editing tool created when scientists reprogrammed a Crispr enzyme. The tool is now used to edit the genes of plants and animals, including humans.

The dispute between the two groups, which seems likely to continue, involves huge sums of money and scientific prestige.

In a seminal paper published in June 2012, a team led by Dr. Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, described how they reprogrammed the Cas9 enzyme to enable the editing of genes.

Dr. Doudna and Dr. Charpentier, who was working at the University of Vienna at the time of the discovery but has since moved to an institution in Berlin, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.

But the Nobel Prize committee and patent office operate under different standards, said Jacob Sherkow, a University of Illinois College of Law professor who has followed the dispute.

The committee awarded the prize to the first to conceive the invention, he said, "not who is the first to get it to work in an easy, replicable process for other scientists."

The central question in the dispute is which group got the Crispr-Cas9 tool to successfully edit genes in eukaryotic cells, those that have nuclei and are in plants and animals. The patent board ruled that a group led by Broad's Dr. Feng Zhang did it first.

The decision included a page from the lab notebooks of Dr. Doudna and her colleagues dated March 1, 2012, in which the idea for the gene-editing technology and its possible utility to edit plant and animal DNA was laid out. The page was dated and signed by the scientists -- an indication, Mr. Sherkow said, that the researchers knew they were "on to something big, something patentable."

The patent officials said the University of California and its partners came up with the idea for a "generic" Crispr-Cas9 editing system on that date but didn't provide convincing evidence that their experiments were successful in plants and animals until later in 2012 -- after the Broad team.

"I am not pleased with the ruling," Dr. Doudna said. "I don't agree with it. It will be appealed." She added, "I stand by our work. It is very clear in the scientific community what was done by whom and when."

The University of California said that the decision contains "a number of errors."

Broad said that the decision confirmed that its patents were properly issued.

In an earlier chapter of the dispute, the University of California group said the Broad patents overlapped with its own invention and in 2015 asked the patent office to intervene. The patent office in 2017 ruled that the Broad patents didn't interfere.

"Then things got wacky," Mr. Sherkow said.

The University of California group filed more patent applications for the Crispr gene-editing system.

This time, he said, the patent authorities and not the rival parties raised the question of who invented the tool for use in eukaryotic cells, the subject of Monday's decision.

As the patent dispute continues, companies working to develop Crispr gene-editing drugs are reporting successful results in early-stage clinical trials.

Shares of Editas Medicine Inc., which licensed the technology from the Broad Institute, closed down 1.9% on Wednesday after rising Tuesday. Shares of companies with licenses from the University of California and its partners fell on but rebounded Wednesday. Crispr Therapeutics AG shares closed 2.3% higher on Wednesday and Intellia Therapeutics Inc. shares rose 5.7%.

The field and the technology are moving so rapidly, with so many patents involved, that "the only safe course for a company getting into this business is to take a license from both groups," said Jorge Contreras, a University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law professor who follows the case.

 

"I don't see any huge financial benefit to keep going with this dispute," he said. "But so far, neither side has been able to lay down the hatchet."" [1]

Work on this methodology has also taken place in Lithuania. However, we are not seen either among the Nobel Laureates or involved in these wars of inventions. We just overslept this story totally.

1. Patent Ruling Picks Winners In Fight Over Gene-Editing Tool
Marcus, Amy Dockser. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: B.1.

 

Mūsų tolima ateitis: rinkodaros specialistai tyrinėja „Metaverse“

„Prekybininkai, norintys susisiekti su vartotojais virtualiame pasaulyje, tyrinėja dvi populiarias metaversijos platformas.

 

    Žinomi prekių ženklai, įskaitant Miller Lite ir Gucci, iškėlė vėliavėles Sandbox ir Decentraland platformose, kuriose skaitmeninis nekilnojamasis turtas buvo parduotas už milijonus dolerių.

 

    Metaverse yra virtualių pasaulių terminas, kuriame žmonės gali žaisti žaidimus ir dalyvauti renginiuose per skaitmeninį avatarą. Norėdami pristatyti savo prekės ženklus šiuose pasauliuose, rinkodaros specialistai perka arba nuomoja skaitmeninę erdvę iš platformų ar trečiųjų šalių, įskaitant vis daugiau metaversijos plėtros įmonių, kurios įsigijo pageidaujamas vietas.

 

    Rinkodaros specialistai įžvelgia naujų pajamų šaltinių metaversumoje, pavyzdžiui, skaitmeninės žemės nuomą kitiems prekių ženklams arba skaitmeninių kolekcionuojamų daiktų, vadinamų nepakeičiamais žetonais, pardavimą.

 

    „Smėlio dėžėje“ yra didesnė įžymybių ir gerai žinomų prekių ženklų koncentracija, o tai gali pritraukti rinkodaros specialistus, o „Decentraland“ suteikia daugiau galimybių eksperimentuoti ir kurti pasaulius, sakė Lewisas Smithinghamas, rinkodaros paslaugų agentūros „Media.Monks“, priklausančios „Media.Monks“, kūrybinių sprendimų direktorius.

 

    Kadangi platformos dar tik kuriamos ir kuriamos funkcijos, gali praeiti šiek tiek laiko, kol ateis tikra sėkmė, sakė Josephas Flaherty, rizikos kapitalo įmonės „Founder Collective“ turinio ir bendruomenės direktorius. „Tiesiog reikia metų ir metų derinti privalumus, išsiaiškinti, kaip visa tai veikia“, – sakė ponas Flaherty.

 

    „Molson Coors Beverage Co.“ reklamavo savo prekės ženklą „Miller Lite“ per kampaniją, susijusią su šių metų „Super Bowl“, atidarydama „Meta Lite Bar“ – virtualią taverną Decentralande. Ji išsinuomojo patalpas iš „TerraZero Technologies Inc.“, metaversijos plėtros bendrovės, už neskelbiamą sumą.

 

    „Meta Lite“ bare lankytojai galėjo įsipilti virtualaus alaus, pabendrauti su kitais vartotojais ir paleisti iš anksto pasirinktą melodiją iš jukebox. Bendrovės teigimu, lankytojai savo avatarams galėtų pasiimti Miller Lite skaitmeninius NFT, pvz., „Meta Lite“ marškinėlius.

 

    „Molson Coors“ pasirinko „Decentraland“ iš dalies dėl to, kad ji suteikė galimybę apriboti, kas patenka į juostą pagal amžių ir pasiekiamumą, naudojant stalinio kompiuterio naršyklę, sakė Sofia Colucci, pasaulinė Miller prekės ženklų viceprezidentė. 

 

Bendrovė atsisakė atskleisti, kiek lankytojų atėjo į barą, tačiau nurodė, kad tie, kurie atvyko, pasilikdavo vidutiniškai 20 minučių.

 

    „Decentraland“ teigė, kad per mėnesį turi apie 600 000 vartotojų. Spalio mėnesį jame vyko keturių dienų muzikos renginys „Metaverse“.

 

    Pasak Andrew Kiguelio, metaverse plėtros bendrovės „Metaverse Group“ vykdomojo pirmininko, „Decentraland“ įrodytas gebėjimas rengti didelio masto renginius yra vienas iš jos patrauklių dalykų.

 

    Lapkričio mėnesį Tokens.com Corp. antrinė įmonė Metaverse Group nusipirko apie 313 000 kvadratinių pėdų Decentralando mados rajone už maždaug 2,5 mln. dolerių. Mados rajonas bus pagrindinė kovo mėn. Decentralando Metaverse mados savaitės vieta, kurioje dalyvaus tokie prekių ženklai, kaip Tommy Hilfiger.

 

    Prekiniai ženklai, įskaitant JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sotheby's, Samsung Electronics America ir net apskaitos įmonė Prager Metis International LLC, taip pat įsteigė reklamines vietas Decentralande.

 

    „Atviri Decentraland standartai reiškia, kad kiekvienas gali kurti patirtį, nereikalaujant leidimo, o įmonės turi savo [intelektinę nuosavybę] mūsų platformoje“, – sakė Sam Hamilton, pelno nesiekiančio fondo „Decentraland Foundation“, kuriančio platformos įrankius ir tvarkykles, kūrybos direktorius.

 

    „Sandbox“, kuri yra „Animoca Brands Corp.“ dukterinė įmonė, šiuo metu yra bandomasis etapas, per kurį šiais metais planuojama atidaryti šešiems laikiniems atkarpoms, pranešė bendrovė. Pirmas laikinas jos atidarymas, surengtas praėjusiais metais nuo lapkričio 29 d. iki gruodžio 20 d., pritraukė daugiau nei 200 000 vartotojų, pranešė bendrovė. „The Sandbox“ pranešė, kad lapkričio mėnesį surinko 93 mln. dolerių B serijos finansavimo etape, kuriam vadovavo „SoftBank Group Corp.

 

    Smėlio dėžę mėgsta įžymybės ir pramogų prekių ženklai, o muzikos atlikėjams Snoop Dogg ir Deadmau5 priklauso žemės sklypai. Kiti žemės savininkai yra „Gucci“ ir organizacija „Bored Ape Yacht Club“ – populiarūs NFT, vaizduojantys animacines beždžiones.

 

    „Smėlio dėžės“ vaizdo stilius panašus į „Microsoft Corp.“ priklausančio populiaraus vaizdo žaidimo „Minecraft“, sakė Janine Yorio, „Everyrealm“, metaversinės turinio ir kūrimo įmonės, nusipirkusios apie 3 kvadratines mylias smėlio dėžėje už 4,3 mln. dolerių.

 

    „Kai „Minecraft“ naudotojai užauga ir sensta, jie susipažins su šiuo vizualiniu stiliumi, todėl manau, kad tai buvo labai protingas „Smėlio dėžės“ žingsnis, kad ji taip  atrodytų, – ponia Yorio. sakė, turėdamas omenyje į „Lego“ panašius personažus ir vaizdo žaidimo kraštovaizdį.“ [1]

1. Business News: Marketers Explore Metaverse
Alcantara, Ann-Marie. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: B.6.  

Our Distant Future: Marketers Explore Metaverse

"Marketers looking to connect with consumers in the virtual world are exploring two popular metaverse platforms.

Well-known brands including Miller Lite and Gucci have planted flags in the Sandbox and Decentraland, platforms where digital real estate has sold for millions of dollars.

The metaverse is a term for virtual worlds where people can play games and attend events via a digital avatar. To showcase their brands in these worlds, marketers buy or rent digital space from the platforms or third parties, including a growing crop of metaverse-development companies that acquired desirable locations.

Marketers see potential for new revenue streams in the metaverse, such as renting digital land to other brands or selling digital collectibles known as nonfungible tokens.

The Sandbox has a higher concentration of celebrities and well-known brands, which might attract marketers, while Decentraland provides more opportunities to experiment and build worlds, said Lewis Smithingham, director of creative solutions at Media.Monks, a marketing-services agency owned by S4Capital.

Because the platforms are nascent and building out features, it might be some time until real successes occur, said Joseph Flaherty, director of content and community at Founder Collective, a venture-capital firm. "It just takes years and years of compounding the advantages, figuring out how all this stuff works," Mr. Flaherty said.

Molson Coors Beverage Co. promoted its Miller Lite brand in a campaign around this year's Super Bowl by opening Meta Lite Bar, a virtual tavern in Decentraland. It rented the space from TerraZero Technologies Inc., a metaverse-development company, for an undisclosed amount.

At the Meta Lite Bar, patrons could pour themselves a virtual beer, chat with other users and play a preselected tune from a jukebox. Patrons could pick up Miller Lite digital NFTs such as a "Meta Lite" T-shirt for their avatars, the company said.

Molson Coors chose Decentraland partly because it offered the ability to restrict who entered the bar by age and its accessibility via desktop browser, said Sofia Colucci, global vice president for the Miller brands. The company declined to share how many visitors came to the bar, but it said those who did stayed for an average of 20 minutes.

Decentraland said it has about 600,000 users a month. In October, it hosted the Metaverse Festival, a four-day music event.

Decentraland's proven ability to hold large-scale events is one of its appeals, according to Andrew Kiguel, executive chairman of Metaverse Group, a metaverse-development company.

In November, Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com Corp., bought about 313,000 square feet in Decentraland's fashion district for about $2.5 million. The fashion district will be the primary venue for Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week in March with brands such as Tommy Hilfiger participating.

Brands including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sotheby's, Samsung Electronics America and even accounting firm Prager Metis International LLC also set up promotional locations in Decentraland.

"Decentraland's open standards means that anyone can build an experience with no need for permission, and companies own their [intellectual property] on our platform," said Sam Hamilton, creative director of the nonprofit Decentraland Foundation, which builds tools for the platform and handles its marketing.

The Sandbox, which is a subsidiary of Animoca Brands Corp., is in a testing phase, scheduled to open to the public for six temporary stretches this year, the company said. Its first temporary opening, held last year from Nov. 29 to Dec. 20, drew more than 200,000 users, the company said. The Sandbox said it raised $93 million in November in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.

The Sandbox is popular with celebrities and entertainment brands, with musical artists Snoop Dogg and Deadmau5 owning parcels of land there. Other landowners include Gucci and the organization behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, a popular NFT depicting cartoon apes.

The visual style in the Sandbox is similar to that of Minecraft, the popular videogame owned by Microsoft Corp., said Janine Yorio, chief executive of Everyrealm, a metaverse content and development company that bought about 3 square miles in the Sandbox for $4.3 million in November.

"As the users of Minecraft grow up and age out, they'll have a familiarity with that visual style, so I think that was a very smart move on the part of the Sandbox to have that vox-related look," Ms. Yorio said, referring to the Lego-like characters and landscape in the videogame." [1]

1. Business News: Marketers Explore Metaverse
Alcantara, Ann-Marie. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: B.6.  

 

Kas yra Tesla? Dalinai atsakydamas, Fordas bando sukurti vidinę Teslą

  „Ford“ siekis suteikti savo elektrinių transporto priemonių verslui savo tapatybę yra susijęs su kultūriniu, o ne finansiniu būdu, bet tai gali pasikeisti.

 

    Automobilių gamintojas trečiadienį pranešė, kad sukurs naują padalinį „Ford Model e“, kuriame įsikurs mažas ir nepelningas, bet sparčiai augantis elektromobilių verslas, atsakingas už „Mustang Mach-E“ ir „F-150 Lightning“. 

 

Nuo kitų metų padalinys turės savo pelno ir nuostolių ataskaitą, kuri bus greta kitų dviejų naujų segmentų: įprastų plataus vartojimo automobilių padalinio, pervadinto į Ford Blue, ir Ford Pro, skirtą automobilių parkų klientams.

 

    Šis žingsnis po kelis mėnesius trukusių spėliojimų, kad „Ford“ gali nutraukti savo elektromobilių verslą, kad išnaudotų investuotojų potraukį vien tik tokiems pavadinimams, kaip „Tesla“, „Rivian“ ir „Lucid“. „Ford“ generalinis direktorius Jimas Farley (Jimas Farley) per pokalbį su žiniasklaida sakė, kad jo komanda išnagrinėjo posūkio galimybes, prieš padarydama išvadą, kad „Ford“ galėtų finansuoti savo elektromobilių spaudimą be pašalinės pagalbos ir būtų naudinga senųjų ir naujų technologijų sinergija.

 

    Tuo diskusijos nesibaigs: kol „Tesla“ rinkos vertė išliks daugkartinė už „Ford“, bet kokie elektromobilių sėkmės ženklai Detroito gamintojui bus lydimi klausimų apie galimą įrenginio nepriklausomumą. Finansų vadovas Johnas Lawleris analitikams sakė, kad „Ford“ planas „šiuo metu“ nebuvo visiškai audituojamas turto ir kapitalo padalijimas, o ne lengvesnis suskirstymas į verslo segmentus, o tai reiškia, kad kada nors taip gali būti. Akcijos pabrango daugiau, nei 8 proc.

 

    Kiekvienas stambus automobilių gamintojas, turintis turtą, kuris galėtų būti labiau vertinamas, jei būtų nepriklausomas, susiduria su klausimais apie atskiras dalis, kai milijardus dolerių nukreipia į technologijas, kurių atlygis neaiškus. Tendencija prasidėjo nuo to, kad 2018 m. „General Motors“ pardavė „SoftBank“ mažumą savo „Cruise“ be vairuotojo automobilių verslo akcijų. Dabar „Volkswagen“ rengia dėl mažumos pozicijos pirminiame viešame„Porsche“ akcijų siūlyme.

 

    „Ford“ yra vienintelis, kuris bando sukurti atskirą verslą, skirtą savo elektromobiliams. Tai rodo operacijos sudėtingumą, kuri iš dalies yra susijusi su sudėtingumo mažinimu. Elektros automobiliai daug dalijasi su įprastais automobiliais, įskaitant surinkimą ir platinimą.

 

    Glumina tai, kad „Ford“ padalijimas apima gamyklas, gaminančias elektromobilius „Ford Blue“, o „Ford Model e“ praneša per matricos struktūrą. Įmonei statant specialias elektromobilių surinkimo gamyklas, jos bus įrengtos Model e gaminti.

 

    P. Farley nori sukurti „Model e“ startuolį, kuris galėtų įveikti „Tesla“ ir kitas gryno žaidimo įmones. Su „Blue“ „Ford“ nori turėti grynųjų pinigų automatą, kuris finansuotų augantį verslą, paremtą paprastumu ir taupia gamyba.

 

    Kol kas šio padalijimo vertė yra radikalus aiškumas, kurį jis suteikia „Ford“ perėjimui prie elektromobilių. Ateinančiais metais niekur nebus stengiamasi, kad naujoji automobilių technologija ekonomiškai konkuruotų su senąja. 

 

Tačiau jei „Model e“ klestės taip, kaip tikėtasi, ponas Farley neišvengiamai turės spaudimą surinkti lėšų per jį. Tai ne tik konkuravimas su „Tesla“ dėl kapitalo: samdyti techninius talentus būtų lengviau, jei „Model e“ turėtų savo akcijas.

 

    Tai, kas iš pirmo žvilgsnio yra tik įmonės reorganizavimas, gali būti „Ford“ gyvenimą keičiančios kelionės pradžia.“ [1]

1.  Ford Tries To Create An Inner Tesla
Wilmot, Stephen. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: B.12.

What is Tesla? Ford Tries To Create An Inner Tesla

"Ford's move to give its electric-vehicle business its own identity is about engineering of a cultural rather than financial kind, but that might change.

The car maker said Wednesday that it would create a new division, Ford Model e, to house the small and unprofitable, but fast-growing, EV business responsible for the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. The unit will have its own profit-and-loss account from next year, sitting alongside two other new segments: the conventional consumer-vehicle division, renamed Ford Blue, and Ford Pro for fleet customers.

The step follows months of speculation that Ford might spin off its EV business to capitalize on investor appetite for pure-play names like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid. Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said on a call with media that his team had looked at spin options before concluding that Ford could fund its EV push without outside help and would benefit from synergies between the old and new technologies.

That won't end the debate: As long as Tesla's market value remains at multiples of Ford's, any signs of EV success at the Detroit manufacturer will be accompanied by questions about the unit's potential independence. Chief Financial Officer John Lawler told analysts a full auditable split of assets and capital, rather than the lighter split into business segments Ford is pursuing, wasn't the plan "at this point" -- implying that at some point it might be. The shares rose more than 8%.

Every big car maker with assets that might be valued more highly if they were independent faces questions about spinoffs as they funnel billions of dollars into technologies with uncertain payoffs. The trend started with General Motors selling SoftBank a minority stake in its Cruise driverless-car business in 2018. Now Volkswagen is working on a minority initial public offering of Porsche.

Ford is the only one trying to create a separate business specifically for its EVs. That hints at the complexity of an operation that is in part about reducing complexity. EVs share a lot with conventional cars, including assembly and distribution.

Confusingly, Ford's split seems to involve plants that produce EVs sitting within Ford Blue, while reporting to Ford Model e through a matrix structure. As the company builds out dedicated EV assembly plants, those will sit within Model e.

Mr. Farley wants to create a freewheeling startup at Model e capable of taking on Tesla and other pure-play companies. With Blue, Ford wants a cash machine to fund the growth business built on simplicity and lean manufacturing.

For now, the value of this split is in the radical clarity it brings to Ford's transition to EVs. Nowhere will the effort to make the new car technology cost-competitive with the old one be more visible and measurable in the coming years.

 

If Model e flourishes as hoped, though, pressure inevitably will build on Mr. Farley to raise funds through it. This isn't just about competing with Tesla for capital: Hiring tech talent would be easier if Model e had its own stock.

 

For what is on the surface just a company reorganization, this could be the start of a life-changing journey for Ford." [1]

1.  Ford Tries To Create An Inner Tesla
Wilmot, Stephen. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: B.12.