On December 14th, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) rendered its Decision on Motions in Interference No 106,132 between Senior Party Sigma-Aldrich ("Sigma") and Junior Party the University of California/Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") (see "PTAB Decides Parties' Motions in CRISPR Interference").  That same day, the Board redeclared the interference pursuant to their intention as advised in their Decision on Motions regarding grant of CVC's Motion No. 4 to add claims from Sigma's U.S. Patents Nos. 10,731,181 (claims 1-17) and 10,745,716 (claims 2-4, 11, 14, and 21-22) (wherein adding these claims is the only difference in the redeclaration from the substantive features of the interference as originally declared).

The Board also suspended proceedings in this interference, acknowledging that CVC had been involved in prior Interference No. 106,115 and that the decision in that interference was under consideration by the Federal Circuit on appeal.  Recognizing that "the count in the current interference is similar in the count in the '115 Interference and some issues raised and decided during the priority phase in the '115 Interference are similar," a decision by the Federal Circuit could "potentially impact[] a decision on priority in this interference."

The Order suspends proceedings in this interference "in the interest of not wasting resources" and states that "a schedule will not be issued before the decisions in the '115 Interference are final and the Federal Circuit has issued a mandate."