To be sure, there are two sides to the dispute over who owns the patent.

But the larger question is USF's handling of the dispute.

It's like nuking your house to get rid of termites.

Jerome Reichman, Vanderbilt University professor of intel
lectual property law, has seen this before.

What happens, he says, is that a scientific discovery becomes a lose-lose proposition.

USF is far from the first to do that, Reichman said. But the fact that a USF student researcher wound up on a Florida prison chain gang by incredibly tenacious efforts to claim ownership of the discovery could make it the most flamboyant.

Reichman doesn't know whether ex-USF student Petr Taborsky, a convicted idea thief, or USF should ultimately win their go-for-the-jugular battle in court. But he says the case over intellectual ownership of a new method of treating wastewater should never have gone to court in the first place.

The case is a modern Pandora's box, bringing nothing but grief to all concerned. The reason is simple: ``The law was developed for private enterprises, not a university setting,'' Reichman said. ``The courts are not the place for this to be worked out. Opportunities for anyone connected to the research to make money from the ideas are disappearing like water down a drainpipe.

``Nobody is going to invest millions if there is a cloud on the title -- and there is clearly a cloud on the title.''

Only if all parties sit down and work out terms for everybody to share in any profits could the commercial possibilities of the discovery be salvaged, and it would have to happen fast, Reichman said.

``If they wait 10 years and spend $1 million in litigation,'' other inventors will figure out the key concepts and make off with all the profits, he said.

``Any wise judge would be prodding parties left and right to settle,'' he added.

Criminal proceedings may set a new threshold for nastiness, but otherwise the Taborsky case is par for intellectual-property disputes at universities nationwide, Reichman said.

USF lawyer Kevin Carey says that Taborsky's claims don't recognize the difference between patent laws protecting invention and laws governing ownership of ideas. USF contends Taborsky's invention is based on ideas he stole from USF, so the invention belongs to USF.

Reichman said, ``Ownership rules are different from patent rules.''

But the differences could come back and bite USF.

``Patent rules are well worked out,'' Reichman said.

Nearly all big universities' employment contracts are specific when it comes to patent rights. ``But the rules of ownership of know-how are very unclear,'' Reichman said.

And Taborsky's case is really two cases: who owns the ideas and who owns the patent. Very few universities have fixed rules about ownership of ideas.

So claims like Taborsky's are common. A lot of people claim the ideas, and there is no clear way to settle the argument.

USF might win in state courts, Reichman said, but the complex mix of state and federal issues means Taborsky can probably keep fighting as long as he can scrape up money for lawyers and has the endurance.

Jack Wheat covers higher education for The Herald.