Sometimes discoveries derived from patients' medical data become the foundation of new profit-making companies. A fledgling industry wants to help patients get a cut of the cash.
Privately funded scientists made a virus related to smallpox from scratch, hoping their version might lead to a better smallpox vaccine. But critics question the need — and worry about repercussions.
CRISPR technology is already worth billions of dollars, investors say. This ruling seems to affirm the biggest piece of the pie goes to the Broad, over patent rival University of California, Berkeley.
A gene-editing technology called CRISPR-cas9 could be a gold mine for its inventors, but it's not clear who owns the idea. U.S. patent judges will soon hear oral arguments to decide the issue.
