Students Beware -- Fla. gov. questions jailing of researcher

["Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@MIT.EDU>]

>Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:06:00 -0400
>From: reagle@rpcp.mit.edu (Joseph M. Reagle Jr.)
>To: reagle@rpcp.mit.edu
>Subject: Fla. gov. questions jailing of researcher
>
>
>                                         
>        TALLAHASSEE, Fla., June 12 (UPI) -- Gov. Lawton Chiles said Wednesday  
>he has ordered Florida education officials to determine whether a 
>university researcher jailed in a patent dispute should be freed. 
>        Petr Taborsky, an undergraduate chemistry major who worked for $8.50  
>an hour in a laboratory at the University of South Florida, was 
>sentenced in January to 3 1/2 years in a maximum-security prison. 
>        He had refused to sign over to the school a patent for a new way he  
>discovered to use a substance similar to cat litter to purify water. 
>        ``I don't know what he's doing in prison,'' said Harry Singletary,  
>Florida's prisons chief. ``We need prison beds for violent offenders, 
>for repeat offenders. I don't see him as anybody threatening the public 
>safety.'' 
>        Chiles' general counsel, Dexter Douglass, asked the Florida Board of  
>Regents to look into the university's handling of what he called ``this 
>bizarre case.'' 
>        Douglass has also asked the state's attorney general to look into the  
>prosecution of Taborsky, ``particularly the apparent use of state funds 
>for private attorneys to push criminal penalties.'' 
>        USF reportedly has spent more than $320,000 on the Taborsky case, in  
>addition to the costs of staff attorneys. 
>        Taborsky's legal problems stemmed from a testing contract USF signed  
>in 1987 with Florida Progress Corp., a utility conglomerate. 
>        The contract specified that Florida Progress would own all data and  
>discoveries. But when Taborsky was hired to work on the project, he did 
>not sign an employment contract forfeiting the right to profit in 
>anything he might discover. 
>        When he left school in 1988, Taborsky took two notebooks that USF  
>ordered him to return. When he refused, university police charged him 
>with theft. 
>        Taborsky contended the data contained in the notebooks was from  
>research he conducted separate from the Florida Progress project and 
>that the utility showed no interest in it until he discovered the new 
>water-purification method. 
>        When a jury convicted him of theft in 1990, Taborsky was sentenced to  
>a year's house arrest, 15 years' probation and ordered to make no 
>further use of the data. 
>        But he pursued a patent and in 1992 received the first of three for  
>the process. USF lawyers argued that was a violation of his probation, 
>and the court ordered Taborsky to sign over the patent to the 
>university. 
>        He refused, and was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.  
>        Taborsky began prison life five months ago and has been described as  
>a model inmate. He served on a chain gang at first and by May was 
>working at the institution's waste-water treatment plant creating 
>computer programs to monitor the water. 
>        Singletary said within a few days, he hopes Taborsky will be in a  
>minimum-security work-release center closer to where his parents live. 
>        ``I'm looking for the right place to put him until he can be  
>considered for clemency or whatever else is being looked at,'' 
>Singletary said. 
>        But at least one member of the Board of Regents defended the way USF  
>handled the Taborsky case. 
>        ``It doesn't sound any different to me than a guy who steals books  
>out of the library,'' said Regents Chairman James Heekin. 
>        ``What's the big deal?'' he asked.  
>                
>
>
_______________________
Regards,            Laziness is no more than the habit of resting before you
                    get tired. -Jules Renard
Joseph  Reagle      http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html
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