Drama and university patenting

Authorship, in the scientific paper sense, does not necessarily inventorship make, in the patent sense. Occasionally this causes a lot of drama. Witness the following case JUNIPER NETWORKS INC v. BAHATTAB [PDF]. As described at the wonderful Docket Report blog:

Thesis Advisor for Inventor's Research was not a Co-Inventor. The court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's inventorship claim, rejecting plaintiff's argument that the named inventor's thesis advisor was a co-inventor.

Interesting case. More frequently, its probably the student who is left off the patent and feels slighted (probably rightly so!).

Another, interesting case: Stanford Ph.D. student sues Stanford, Stanford prof over patents and copying thesis. Good to see students sticking up for their IP in general!