CGS : Hwang to Back His Own Inventions

Disgraced gene scientist Hwang Woo-suk is getting a shot at redemption with his former employer, Seoul National University (SNU) transferring him ownership of his disputed work.

Hyun Sang-hwan, Hwang's colleague at the Sooam Biotech Research Center, confirmed that SNU had handed over the intellectual property rights for Hwang's claimed inventions in human stem cell research to H-Bion, a biotech company Hwang established in May last year.

SNU announced last month on its decision to withdraw patent applications related to Hwang's work and said it would consider transferring the rights to local companies or institutions seeking to continue research.

The school's business foundation had applied for patents on Hwang's technologies in 11 countries, including the Untied States and Australia, in June and July of 2006. However, SNU fired Hwang later in the year after his studies on cloned human stem cells were deemed as fraudulent.

According to Korean law, intellectual property rights for inventions produced by employees of national universities belong to the state. Thus, the patents that had been reviewed by patent authorities overseas were filed under SNU's name, with Hwang listed as one of the 19 inventors, which put the university in the awkward position of representing someone it had expelled.

Monday's deal allows Hwang to keep the patent applications alive under the name of H-Bion. In selling the ownership of Hwang's work to H-Bion, SNU was paid 140 million won, identical to the amount of money spent by the school in applying for the patents, a source said.

Hwang reached a rare rock-star status for a scientist in 2005 by claiming to have created cloned embryos from patient-specific embryonic stem cells. Although the study was later exposed as containing fake data, Hwang continues to insist that his technology is legitimate.

The patent application filed in the 11 countries relates to a human embryonic stem cell line, NT-1, that Hwang claimed to have generated through somatic cell nuclear transfer in a separate study in 2004. His work was published by peer-review journal Science.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of biotechnology and public policy issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.