Mike Mckee: Genetech acussed on stealing technology of University of California

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

http://www.lawnewsnet.com/stories/A667-1999Apr13.html

Sparks Fly in UC, Genentech Patent
Dispute

Trial to decide who owns human growth hormone

Mike Mckee
The Recorder/Cal Law
April 14, 1999


A long-awaited patent trial over pioneering DNA research got
off to a hostile start Tuesday when an attorney for the
University of California accused Genentech Inc. of stealing the
science it used for making lucrative human growth hormone.

Morrison & Foerster partner Gerald Dodson argued in his
opening statement that Genentech didn't have the genetic
material it needed until former UC-San Francisco researcher
Peter Seeburg paid a stealthy visit to his old laboratory on New
Year's Eve 1978.

Seeburg -- one of three UC researchers who claim to have
invented the method for creating the hormone that has
widespread medical applications -- had gone to work for
Genentech earlier that year, Dodson said, but took DNA from
his old lab after his new employer had been unable to acquire it
from UC.

"Dr. Seeburg may have thought he had the right to take the
DNA," Dodson told four male and six female jurors in San
Francisco federal court. "But he did not. The title to the DNA
was held by the University of California, not by Genentech.
And not by Dr. Seeburg."

Genentech's lawyer didn't deny Dodson's allegation, but said
Genentech didn't use the pilfered DNA anyway because it
doesn't do what UC claims. He said Genentech successfully
developed its own hormone.

  [snip]

-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org