Federal patent office rules against two Pitt doctors on vaccine application; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/11/15

Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Federal patent office rules against two Pitt doctors on vaccine application:

"When Dr. Kolls failed to add her name, Dr. Norris sought a university investigation. That was carried out by a faculty committee, which ruled in 2013 that even though the Norris lab had made the original discovery of the protein fragment cited in the patent application, it could not determine whether Dr. Kolls and Dr. Zheng had engaged in outright misconduct. Instead, the panel said, the two physicians were guilty of “research impropriety.”

Ironically, the patent office cited the Pitt faculty committee’s own report as the primary basis for ruling against Dr. Kolls and Dr. Zheng on the patent application. “The threshold question in determining inventorship is who conceived the invention,” the office said. “Unless a person contributes to the conception of the invention, he is not an inventor.” The “evidence appears to indicate that Kolls and Zheng do not meet the requirements of inventorship.”

The patent office gave Pitt, which is the lead party in the application, until Dec. 10 to respond to the decision. Pitt released a statement Friday saying it “appreciates the detail and attention the [patent office] is devoting to the careful evaluation of this patent application,” but “would continue its vigorous pursuit of the patentability of the remaining claims, in support of the science and each of the four named inventors.”

Pitt spokesman Ken Service said that meant the university would submit evidence advocating for inventor rights for all four scientists, and then let the patent office make the final decision."