INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Society seeks decision from the Ohio Supreme Court
T
HE AMERICAN Chemical Society has filed an
appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court over the intellectual property dispute it has now lost twice—first in a 2008 jury trial and then in an appeals court decision handed down in June—against Leadscope, a Columbus, Ohio-based chemical informatics company (C&EN Online, Latest News, June 17). Amicus briefs in support of ACS, which publishes C&EN, have been filed by the Ohio State Bar Association, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, and the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants. The legal battle stretches back to 2002, when ACS brought suit against Leadscope and three former ACS employees who founded the company: Paul E. Blower Jr., Wayne P. Johnson, and Glenn J. Myatt. All three had worked in ACS’s Chemical Abstracts Service Division. In the original suit, ACS alleged that the defendants improperly used ACS’s intellectual property to develop, patent, and market Leadscope software products. The jury found against ACS on these claims. At the same time, the Leadscope defendants filed a counterclaim against ACS, charging malicious litigation in filing its suit, defamation, tortious interference with business relations, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices. The lower court found in favor of Leadscope on all but the last of the counterclaims and awarded the defendants compensatory and punitive damages. An Ohio appeals court affirmed the jury’s de-
cision on all of these matters. In its appeal to the Ohio high court, ACS is not seeking a reversal of the jury’s decision on its original claim. Rather, it would like the court to consider constitutional questions the society says are raised by the jury’s decision on the counterclaims by Leadscope. The constitutional issues ACS and its amicus partners would like the Ohio court to address are the standard under which a party may be found liable for bringing a lawsuit and whether ACS was properly found liable for defamation on the basis of two statements it made related to the litigation. It is uncertain whether the Ohio Supreme Court will take the case and when it will make that decision. If the high court does not accept the case, ACS will immediately be on the hook to Leadscope and its three founders for some $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and court costs. The judgment is one of the largest for defamation ever handed down in the Ohio courts. “Although ACS does not seek to prolong this litigation or its costs needlessly, ACS believes that further review by the Ohio Supreme Court of the substantial judgment that has been entered against ACS is warranted,” the society said in a statement. “To the knowledge of ACS, there has never before been a case where an Ohio court has awarded damages based upon a theory of ‘malicious litigation.’ ” Attorneys for Leadscope could not be reached for comment by C&EN’s deadline.—WILLIAM SCHULZ
GULF OF MEXICO Dead zone peaks at near-record size The 2010 low-oxygen dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest ever recorded at 7,772 sq miles, researchers from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium reported last week. The dead zone forms each summer in waters from Texas to Louisiana after tons of nutrients, carried down the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers during spring runoff, stimulate massive blooms of algae. The algae die, and bacteria that consume their carcasses deplete oxygen in the water to levels too low to support most marine life. In May, Louisiana State University ecologist R. Eugene Turner studied the
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Chambers of the Ohio Supreme Court
LOUIS IANA UNI VERSI TI ES MARINE CONSORTIUM
ACS AGAIN APPEALS LEADSCOPE CASE
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level of nitrogen compounds in the Gulf. From that data, he predicted a 2010 dead zone of between 7,400 and 8,500 sq miles. The extent of the hypoxic waters and nitrogen Dissolved oxygen (mg/L) ■2 ■3 ■4 ■5 ■6 ■7 carried by runoff are unambiguously related, he said. The 2010 dead zone has several areas of low oxygen The large dead zone is the rather than the continuous band seen in past years. latest bad news for the Gulf, Researchers attribute this to tropical storms that which is still dealing with oil swept across the Gulf in July. from the BP rig explosion. Researchers, however, point out that the oil is not necessarily a facsummer with oil from the BP spill,” added tor in this year’s dead zone. “It would Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the be difficult to link conditions seen this consortium.—CHERYL HOGUE
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