CureVac’s mRNA Vaccine Patents Invalidated in UK Courts

Mr Justice Meade has found that two of CureVac’s patents relating to the technology behind mRNA vaccines, such as the COVID vaccines, are invalid as that claims are not sufficiently disclosed and also are not inventive.

The patent covered mRNA molecule having a split “poly(A)” tail. It was known at the time of filing that a series of adenosine bases (a poly(A)tail) increased expression of mRNA molecules, but it was degraded over time. The invention related to introducing a linker sequence into a poly(A) tail to split it, which supposedly led to improved expression. The patents failed to describe this improvement or to provide evidence proving the increased stability (and so expression) due to the split, leading to a conclusion that it was not plausible that all of the molecules claimed would have the desired activity. In addition, despite the provision of additional data, the claims were found to lack a technical effect over the entire scope of the claims, so insufficient.

In a further setback to CureVac, the judge also found the claims were obvious over the cited prior art.

In an interesting move, CureVac chose not to present the case in relation to a third patent in this trial, but indicated that it intends to argue on appeal to the Supreme Court that the law surrounding “plausibility” in the UK courts should be changed. We will watch to see how this case develops.

A version of this report appeared in the Journal of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys