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Galen Suppes, a former professor of chemical engineering at the University of Missouri at Columbia, must pay the institution $600,000 in damages, a jury decided this week, according to the Missourian. In an intellectual property lawsuit involving technology that converts glycerin to acetal, propylene glycol and antifreeze, the university system’s Board of Curators accused Suppes of violating his contract and financially competing against Mizzou in denying it property rights to inventions developed within the scope of his employment.
The board argued that it lost $3.7 million over the disputed technology, while Suppes argued there was no proof of that claim and that both he and the university owned his technology. The jury voted 10-2 that Suppes breached his contract and was competing against it, but it rejected a third claim that Suppes had interfered in business relationships between the university and other parties.
Suppes was fired from the university in 2016, according to the university, after 12-member faculty panel recommended termination.Mizzou “will continue to protect its intellectual rights, as well as those of the faculty and taxpayers,” it said in a statement. “Protecting and commercializing the intellectual property created by university researchers is pivotal to the growth and strength of our research and economic development programs.”
