The Guac Bug

Several Weeks Later

Quentin Thomas subscribed routinely to several watch services that alerted him to U.S. and foreign patents dealing in fields of particular interest to his clients, including of course Bis.

This morning he watched, fascinated and alarmed, as the text of the European patent application scrolled up on his monitor. He immediately called Gruen. “I’m e-mailing you a copy. We need to talk. I can get there within the hour. Better bring Blake in, maybe Mary Lacey.”

“It’s a European patent application,” the lawyer explained. “They publish early, invite opposition, and if the application survives, it eventually issues, and has a high presumption of validity. It’s different in the U.S. We keep our pending patent applications secret until they issue. But with the European system we re alerted to the fact that a U.S. case is on file and pending, because the European document refers to it, and claims the U.S. filing date for priority purposes. The inventor here is Francis Bakker. Anybody know him?”

“My opposite number at Catley-Torgsen—C-T,” Blake said. “So C-T is now in the game. This could be serious.”

In more ways than one, thought the lawyer. Officials at the competing pharmaceutical house had been accused of sundry unethical practices, including theft of trade secrets. He said quietly, “You’ll note their priority date is three months after your deposit at ATCC.” He looked across the conference table in sudden concern. “Ben, you did deposit with ATCC, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” said Blake. “I sent it special messenger. We have a receipt. It’s official, ATCC 06-327.”

“You included process details? How to culture and use the product?”

“All of that. You can see what they did at C-T. They ordered up a specimen of our ATCC 06, tested it for Bis, and promptly filed their patent.”

“Barefaced thievery,” mused Thomas.

“We’ve picked up rumors,” Gruen said thoughtfully. “They say C-T is designing a new plant… big one… to make a new secret drug, something they call Cat-Sen. The secret is out, now. It’s obviously a clone of our Anti-Bis.”

Thomas had heard some of the rumors, but they had meant nothing to him at the time. Now they made sense. But C-T would want to be sure they had a monopoly before they built a plant. And for a monopoly they would need a strong patent. C-T management surely knew their man Bakker was not actually the first inventor, and that if the truth ever came out, their patent was dead. The stakes were high. And yet, GT management must have studied ATCC 06 from all angles and decided it was not a threat to their patent. He had to assume that J. Reginald Alfrey, C-T’s General Counsel, had advised John Gordio, C-T’s president and CEO, that ATCC 06 was not a problem.

Why wasn’t C-T worried about ATCC 06?

A sudden chill struck the lawyer. “Ben, I want you to put in a personal call to ATCC, right now, while we wait here. Ask the records clerk to e-mail you the process description, about 200 words, that you filed with ATCC 06.”

“Quent… you don’t think…?”

“I don’t think anything. Let’s just find out for sure.”

“Of course. Wait here.”

Ten minutes later they had the answer. The Rockville agency had never received a process description.

Thomas studied the table glumly. So that was why C-T could plan to make Cat-Sen commercially. Their patent could not be knocked out by Gruen’s earlier ATCC because no enabling description had accompanied the specimen. C-T would get a seventeen-year monopoly, plus another five years if FDA stalled clearance for their new drug. C-T was about to get legal custody of the beautiful child that Mother Gruen had brought into the world.

Gruen asked sadly, “Ben, how did it happen?”

“I don’t know… our man… the messenger… no, that couldn’t be…”

Our boy was bribed, thought Thomas. That’s what he’s trying not to say.

“I’ll check with Personnel,” Blake said. “I think he’s gone.

Early retirement, thought Thomas. Wonder what C-T paid him.

“May I say something?” Mary Lacey asked hesitantly.

Gruen smiled encouragingly at her. “Of course.”

“Well, I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. Under the circumstances, though… What I want to say is, we did in fact file a process description with our deposit of ATCC 06.”

Thomas opened his eyes wide. “We did? Explain, please.”

“The description is part of the specimen… about a thousand codons, some 3,000 nucleides, in the foreport of the specimen.” She looked at their faces anxiously. “You see… don’t you…?”

Blake stared at her, then slapped the table, startling everyone. “Of course! Each codon calls for a specific amino acid. Each amino acid—there are twenty of them—is a particular letter of the alphabet. A string of one thousand letters, about 200 words. Yes! that would be the description we tried to deposit with our specimen!”

“Remarkable, Mary,” declared Gruen. “But how did you happen to think of it? And why?”

“I… didn’t trust Willie, Dr. Gruen. He suddenly had a lot of money.”

It was that twenty billion dollars at work again, thought Thomas. That kind of money is alive, it has its own will. It is powerful, omnivorous, overwhelming. It simply blew the messenger boy away. But maybe like mighty Achilles, it has a vulnerable heel. Code? Hm.

“Does that change anything?” Gruen asked the lawyer.

“I’m not sure. Is the code readily decipherable by one skilled in the art? Mary?”

“I think so. It’s just a simple substitution code. Leucine means ‘e’, proline means ‘t’, and so on. There was no way to provide the key in the specimen itself, of course, but the decoder can work it out easily from well-known letter frequencies… e, t, a, o, i, n, and so on.”

Thomas was tempted to feel relieved, but decided it would be premature. On the other hand it was always nice to know something that the opposition didn’t. Indeed, something crucial and possibly even ultimately decisive. “Walter,” he told Gruen, “I think it would be a good idea if you set up lunch with John Gordio soon, with me and his lawyer Reggie Alfrey along. Maybe we can help them decide whether they’re going to build a plant to make Catsup.”

“They call theirs Cat-Sen,” said Blake.

“Catsup,” said Gruen. “A meeting. Good idea. They’ve got a problem. When we tell them what we have, their board of directors is going to want a quick decision. But litigation in Federal court is currently running about five years. I think Big John will glad to talk to us. I’ll call you, Quentin.”