By Kevin E. Noonan --
Captioned disarmingly as a Notice of Related Proceedings under 37 C.F.R. § 41.8(a)(1) and ¶ 8.2 of the Standing Order, Junior Party the University of California/Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") somewhat boldly asserted in its June 6th filing that the Board no longer had jurisdiction over its applications-in-interference in Interference Nos. 106,127 and 106,132. The legal basis for this challenge (framed, appropriately, as a request), is that CVC appealed the Board's decision in favor of granting priority to Broad Institute and colleagues in Interference No. 106,115 (see "PTAB Grants Priority for Eukaryotic CRISPR to Broad in Interference No. 106,115"). CVC's appeal of that determination and the Federal Circuit's docketing of that appeal, over "all of the same Junior Party applications and claims as those involved in [these] interference[s]," takes away the Board's authority in each of these interferences, citing In re Allen, 115 F.2d 936, 939 (C.C.P.A. 1940), In re Grier, 342 F.2d 120, 123 (C.C.P.A. 1965), In re Graves, 69 F.3d 1147, 1149-50 (Fed. Cir. 1995), and 37 C.F.R. § 41.35(b)(2) in support of this proposition. Accordingly, CVC states, no longer having jurisdiction "the PTAB may not issue a judgment with respect to Junior Party's involved applications in this interference."
Neither ToolGen (in the '127 Interference) nor Sigma-Aldrich (in the '132 Interference) have yet responded.
Comments