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Biotech / Medical : Zonagen (zona) - good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dr. Voodoo who wrote (2107)	1/28/1998 10:05:00 PM
From: Dauntless	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7041

On lawsuits, fraudulent patents and filthy liars.... Dr. Voodoo, I'm beginning to like you more & more. You wrote: >>I still don't understand how you can file a "fraudulent" patent application unless. 1.) You lie about the data in order to validate your claims. or, 2.) Knowingly file an application that infringes on other peoples claims.<< I have a copy of the lawsuit (anyone can get it from the courthouse) and I'm going to clear some things up for you - but first - On Jan. 9th Asensio released a report titled: >>Zonagen charged with patent and discovery fraud.<< Now I'm not a lawyer, but that sure seems like Asensio is reporting that Zonagen is being sued FOR filing a fraudulent patent. And I, like you, immediately thought - what is a FRAUDULENT patent? You prepare a patent application (usually with an expensive attorney's help - & guidance), file it, and wait for the patent office to reply. If your claims are pre-existing, or if they don't hold water - your patent is denied. You can then appeal the decision, but if you can't convince the examiner that he was wrong, you will lose again. End result, you've wasted lots of time & money - but there's no fraud. Based upon reading the lawsuit, here are the major details. THe lawsuit isn't constructed exactly like this review - I've made it more chronological and I've concentrated on those facts required to expose the Asensio report for what it is..... OK - you know my feelings about that. Point is, this is an open lawsuit & I don't want to comment on who's claims are more valid - besides, this document only tells the plaintiff's side of the story. 1- Dr. Balbir S. Bhogal went to work for Zonagen as their Director of Immunology on June 1, 1993. 2- In connection with his employment, he signed a "Key Management Proprietary Information and Inventions and Noncompetition Agreement" -(PIA). 3- By June of 1995 Joe Podolski had become dissatisfied with Dr. Bhogal's performance, and , in an emotional confrontation between the two of them, Joe told Dr. Bhogal to look for another job. 4- Shortly after that, Zonagen discovered a letter from Dr. Bhogal to a scientist at Schering Plough - seeking employment. Said letter was alledged by Zonagen to contain information in violation of the PIA. 5- There are pages & pages of claims & explanation contained in a section called - "Plaintiff's Statment of Facts. In this section Dr. Balbir basically claims that the information contained in his letter to SGP was already in the public domain. He claims that the information was cited as prior art in a denial of a patent application by the patent office. Therefore, he did not violate the PIA. 6- Lots more stuff about what exactly was covered in the PIA, legalese, etc. 7- Finally, in a section titled "Causes of Action" the plaintiff asks for/and or claims - a declaratory order that the PIA is void - defamation - his firng was a ruse to deprive him of his stock options - that Zonagen & its lawyers have committed acts that constitute libel - intentional infliction of emotional distress - tortuous interference with future business advantage - invasion of privacy The bottom line is Zonagen WAS NOT "CHARGED" by Dr. Bhogal with filing a fraudulent patent. In defending himself against a charge from Zonagen Dr. Bhogal asserts that a patent application filed by Zonagen contained information that was prior art & therefore in the public domain. He asserts that Zonagen knew this (in fact, he claims that he told Joe this) prior to filing the patent application - which asserts is fraud. Hence, when he included it in a letter to a potential employer, he was not violating his PIA. The document contain several attachments including the letter of Bhogal, another to Bhogal from Joe, etc. Let me repeat - I'm not trying to present either party in a better light. They are in court & it will get worked out someday. A new phrase I've learned in Texas for this situation is - "I don't have a dog in this fight" - kind of homey, huh. I'm sorry for repeating the same old song, but WHEN WILL YOU OPEN YOUR EYES and see (or is it admit) the truth. You are trying to make sense out of an Asensio report which is a deliberate distortion of the truth. He takes advantage of his access to big time media to issue these reports - intended to manipulate the stock price. Asensio's Jan 9th report claiming that Zonagen was sued by a former employee for filing a fraudulent patent is an outright lie. Asensio's Jan 13th report claiming that the formulation of Vasomax is nothing new completely misrepresents the intent of the patent - as you recently figured out. Asensio's Jan 15th report claiming that the fast dissolving claims for Vasomax are "proven false & fraudulent" are based on a study utilizing an analytical technique that was completely UNVALIDATED. Later studies, using VALIDATED techniques completely support Zonagen's claims. You claim to have dismissed Asensio's claims. but you seem to be expending lots of time trying to check them out. Here's an easy solution - when you read something from Asensio about Zonagen remember that he has a huge stake in driving the price down & therefore you can assume that's everything he says is taken out of context, inadequately researched, deliberately misrepresented - or just an OUTRIGHT LIE!!! Why don't we ignore it deal with real concerns - this company has them - why bother with this bullshit? I'm tired now - good night.