Motion practice continues in Interference No. 106,115 between Senior Party The Broad Institute, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (collectively, "Broad") and Junior Party the University of California/Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC"), with CVC filing on January 6th its Reply to Broad's opposition to CVC's Miscellaneous Motion No. 6 for leave to subpoena discovery (including depositions) from Luciano Marraffini and Shuailiang Lin, neither of whom is a party to this interference (pursuant to an Order authorizing filing of this Reply issued by the Board on December 28th).

CVC's motion was predicated on its contention that these witnesses had relevant testimony regarding Broad's priority, dates of conception, and activities related to reduction to practice, that Broad would not voluntarily provide these witnesses for deposition, and that such testimony would contradict allegations in Broad's priority statement.  CVC also asserted that it had attempted to obtain their testimony voluntarily but had been refused, making subpoena the only avenue available for obtaining their evidence.

Broad in its opposition contended that any such evidence would be redundant over evidence available from other witnesses and documents, and that much of any such testimony was not relevant to Broad's priority proofs.  Broad further argued that there were no inconsistencies between whatever testimony CVC could adduce from these witnesses and the "allegations" in its priority statement and evidence it would proffer with its (at the time, to be filed) Motion for Priority.

Since filing its Opposition, Broad has filed its Priority Motion and CVC's Reply to Broad's Opposition depends in large part on that Motion, CVC contending that it supports their asserted reasons why testimony from Drs. Marraffini and Lin is relevant and necessary, most notably that "both Dr. Marraffini and Dr. Lin have personal knowledge concerning Dr. Zhang's work, including his prior unsuccessful attempts to achieve genomic cleavage in human cells."

Regarding Dr. Marraffini, CVC contends (perhaps most relevantly) in its Reply that communications between Dr. Marraffini and Broad's inventor Dr. Zhang were used in support of Broad's Priority Motion, making Broad's position that any testimony from Dr. Marraffini would not be relevant evidence.  CVC responds by stating that "Broad's argument is misleading as its own priority evidence and Dr. Marraffini's public statements confirm that he has relevant information beyond the emails Broad produced in this proceeding.  This evidence includes discussions between Dr. Marraffini and Dr. Zhang that CVC contends establish Dr. Zhang's failures prior to June 2012, as well as "discussions where Marraffini conveyed to Zhang CVC's presentation of its work with chimeric RNA."  CVC also contends that "Dr. Marraffini's recollection of events contradicts Dr. Zhang's assertion that he successfully achieved genomic cleavage in human cells by November 2011," relying on statements from Dr. Marraffini that it took several months after starting a collaboration with Dr. Zhang and that Dr. Marraffini's collaboration did not start until 2012.

Regarding Dr. Lin's testimony, CVC asserts that denying them an opportunity to depose him is inconsistent with Broad's reliance on experiments he conducted, and that substituting another witness (Dr. Sanjana) to provide testimony regarding Dr Lin's experiments would be improper.  CVC argues that "Dr. Lin is the person most competent to testify regarding his lab notebook, his experimental work and his communications with Dr. Zhang, all of which Broad relies on to support its priority motion" (emphasis in Reply).  This evidence is specifically relevant, according to CVC, because Broad relies on it to establish successful CRISPR cleavage in human cells in 2011.  CVC also argues that Dr Lin's testimony is necessary to reconcile Broad's assertions in its Priority Motion that Dr. Zhang "realized" the components necessary for successful CRISPR cleavage in eukaryotic cells and Dr. Lin's apparent comments to the contrary.

CVC's Reply closes by noting that "Broad identifies no authority for its request for deposition time and waived any right to such time by not timely raising a request for discovery," and mentions that this request "undermines its assertions that these depositions will be redundant of other testimony, and also confirms the absence of any cognizable prejudice to Broad."  But like Broad, CVC also argues a fallback position, that should the Board permit cross-examination time to Broad it should be limited in substance to issues raised and examined by CVC and to "no more than one hour," which CVC apparently believes would prevent Broad from taking away any advantage of these depositions.

Separately, the PTAB issued an Order authorizing CVC to file an Opposition to Broad's Contingent Responsive Motion No. 6, and the Broad to file a Reply to any such opposition.