
Researcher sues Harvard for drug royalties - hatmatrix
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/05/Researcher-sues-Harvard-for-drug-royalties.html
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MengerSponge
What a mess.

That said, I'd love to see their lab notebooks! There's a reason you document
the parties who were present. For my fellow junior scientists, remember that
keeping good lab records protects you from predatory PIs and from accusations
of malfeasance.

I've used both ELog and a numbered paper notebook. Elog is nice because it's
indexed and searchable, but I appreciate the ability to think through a
problem as I write it out long-hand.

[http://midas.psi.ch/elog/](http://midas.psi.ch/elog/)

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HarryHirsch
More details including the documents at Chemjobber:
[http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2017/05/harvard-matt-shair-
be...](http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2017/05/harvard-matt-shair-being-sued-
by-former.html)

The bad labour market has paradoxically an effect of encouraging lawsuits.
When previously you'd have bailed quickly, nowadays you hang on to your job
and collect _kompromat_.

~~~
cavanasm
Somewhat confusing bit brought up by this blog post: it claims the previous
similar case (grad student Matt Charest suing for royalties on a patent he
worked extensively on but was cut out of) brought by this lawyer was a
failure, while the source article mentions Harvard settled that case out of
court on "mutually beneficial terms".

I guess the blog post may be referring to more specific claims in that case
that the PhD advisor had a role to look out for the student's best interest,
and by cutting the student out of the patent, the advisor was going against
that (the court said the advisor had no obligation to look out for the
student's financial interest). The student still got paid, although the amount
is secret.

~~~
jacquesm
Grad student exploited and advisor reaps the credit? That's got to have been a
complete surprise to everybody involved. /s

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easilyBored
So Harvard paid the 35% share but didn't allocate it properly--if the lawsuit
is telling the truth.

Looks like there are a lot of ways to screw people, or ways where people feel
like they're getting screwed. Joining patents is one of them because you have
to value the contribution of each patent to the mix
[https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i11/Royalties-suit-
against-H...](https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i11/Royalties-suit-against-
Harvard-moves.html)

