No winners in patent shootout
Barinaga, M.
Science 284(5421): 1752-1753
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 10391787 Document Number: 499812
A nine-member federal jury failed to reach a verdict on a claim by the University of California (UC) that South San Francisco biotech giant Genentech infringed the university's patent on the gene for human growth hormone. The jury upheld the validity of the UC patent, which Genentech had challenged, and divided eight-to-one for UC on infringement, saving the company from potential damages as high as $1.2 billion. Having already invested $20 million and nine years in the case, UC is likely to request a new trial at a hearing set for June 22. The writer discusses the testimony of Peter Seeburg, a former UC San Francisco postdoc, now a director at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, who said that, during the gene's development, he and his Genentech colleagues used research materials he took from his former lab at UCSF during a furtive New Year's eve visit.