MIT accuses company of denying its researcher credit for anti-cancer device

MIT is demanding a Littleton company add a professor to a patent for a particle-beam generator used for treating certain cancers.

In a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Boston yesterday, MIT says Still River Systems could not have completed its single-room synchrocyclotron without the contributions of Timothy Antaya, a researcher at the school's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. But Still River's patent for the device lists only its founder, Kenneth Gall, as the inventor.

MIT says Gall approached MIT in 2004 for help building his device and that "SRS agreed to sponsor Dr. Antaya's research to allow him to develop a working synchrocyclotron for certain medical applications" (2007 article by Antaya on commercialized synchrocyclotrons). MIT says part of the company's patent application is actually lifted directly from an uncredited memo by Antaya.

Complete complaint.