Dispute Overview

The Restasis® innovation dates back to 1983-1987. However, inventor's equity ownership rights at UGA didn't become public knowledge until 1996 when UGA published their 1995 Intellectual Property Policy. Dr. Kaswan claims that the UGA Intellectual Property (IP) Policy requires the UGA Research Foundation (UGARF) to reassign her patents to her. UGARF initially agreed with Dr. Kaswan's position and committed to reassign her patents to her, then back-pedaled when Restasis® won FDA approval on December 24, 2002, and the stakes changed.

Litigators immediately intercepted and stopped all direct communications between UGARF and Dr. Kaswan. They recommended an iron fist offensive-defensive strategy and initiated a series of bad faith claims against Kaswan and her company KB Visions, Inc. within weeks of the FDA's approval of Restasis®. UGA's executive attorney blocked Dr. Kaswan's request for faculty peer review as prescribed in the UGA Intellectual Property Policy forcing her into protracted litigation to get her inventor's share of the vastly reduced net royalties, all the while subtracting UGARF's litigation expense from net royalties.

Meanwhile, Allergan approached UGARF with a proposal for an upfront buy-down of their Restasis® royalty contract and proposed to co-defend the patent ownership dispute against Dr. Kaswan. Allergan insisted that UGARF prevent Dr. Kaswan from learning about their renegotiations until the buy-down deal was signed, which allowed Allergan to undervalue the Restasis® royalty stream owed to UGA and Dr. Kaswan. The deal UGARF accepted was well below market-rate and ultimately lost them over $220 million in royalty income they would have made if they had simply let the original Licensing Agreement executed in 1993 continue.