Biotechnology venture company MYTECH of Kobe, Japan filed a
patent application for early detection technology for cancer.
However, one of the listed co-applicants and researchers, Associate
Professor Hiroaki Ito of Showa University Koto Toyosu Hospital
(Tokyo), has accused MYTECH of robbing him of credit for what he
had really invented first.
Now the two parties are going to court to assert their stakes in
the intellectual property rights at issue. Hearings will begin on
September 28 as spokespersons for MYTECH and Ito present their
cases. Meanwhile, dozens of medical institutions have begun
offering use of PROTEO, an application of this technology.
Ito claims to be the sole inventor, while his opponents (a
father and son) in MYTECH argue that he only provided support in
verifying their own ideas. There is dispute as to how the written
agreement between Ito and MYTECH in 2012 was applied and whether
Ito violated that agreement, where he supposedly affirmed that
