Moderna notches a win in long-running Arbutus patent fight
Moderna celebrated a win on Tuesday in its long-running patent battle with Arbutus Biopharma.
A federal appeals court upheld a prior decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidating an Arbutus patent around stable nucleic acid lipid particles. Because mRNA is inherently large and unstable, currently-approved Covid-19 vaccines deploy bubbles of fat called lipid nanoparticles to protect the molecule and escort it across the cell membrane. Moderna petitioned the PTO more than four years ago, arguing that claims in Arbutus’ patent, dubbed ‘127, were covered by an earlier Arbutus patent filed in 2008.
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