Peter Taborsky

Peter Taborsky was a chemistry student at the University of South Florida. In 1988 he was working as an assistant researcher on a project sponsored by Florida Progress Corporation that has not been very successful. At the end of the designated research period he obtained permission from a dean in the College of Engineering to conduct his own experiments using a different approach, hoping to use the material for a master's thesis. It was then he made an important discovery which could be applied in the filtering of ammonia from polluted water. Both the university and the corporation claimed the invention as theirs because it was made using their laboratory, furthermore stating that he wasn't entitled to any (monetary or other) benefit for having made the discovery. Taborsky reasoned that his findings did belong to him and took matters into his own hands: he took the notes he made with him, applying for and obtaining a patent for his findings. Subsequently the university charged Taborsky with criminal charges, in 1990 he was found guilty of theft of the university's "property" in the form of $20,000 worth of research and trade secrets. When he refused to comply with a judge order to hand over his patent to the University of South Florida he was incarcerated in a maximum-security state prison. After two months he would be transfered to a minimum-security work-release center. Taborsky was offered clemency by Governor Lawton Chiles but he declined, stating that this would be tantamount to admitting guilt.

References

* A NPR [http://www.cptech.org/ip/npr.txt transcript]
* An [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press3.htm article] in The Atlantic (paragraph starting with "In their zeal to maximize revenue")
* A [http://www.cptech.org/ip/csm.html copy of an article] form the Christian Science Monitor