UH wants laser
from Duke University
DURHAM, N.C. >> Duke University said last week its battle with a former professor who is now in Hawaii over ownership of two lasers will return to federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the school's request to review the case.
Former Duke physicist John Madey has sued Duke, accusing the university of violating patents on equipment still in use at the lab he left. Duke maintains that nonprofit research institutions are exempt from some patent rules. The university asked the Supreme Court to decide the case after a federal appeals court ruled against Duke last fall.
The Supreme Court denied Duke's petition, the school said.
Madey and fellow researchers at the University of Hawaii have landed a $50 million grant to conduct defense-related research using free-electron lasers. They want to use equipment Madey left in Durham to get the job done.
Duke insists it owns the devices, which Madey says are worth about $6 million. He said the lasers are essential in experiments developing eye or brain surgery techniques and detectors of nuclear and chemical weapons.
Madey invented the free-electron laser in the 1970s while a graduate student at California Institute of Technology and later at Stanford University. The devices use moving electrons to produce beams of intense infrared light that can be tuned precisely for many tasks.
Duke lured Madey from Stanford in the 1980s with promises to build him a laser lab. He ran the Duke Free Electron Laser Laboratory from 1989 to 1997, when Duke administrators removed him as director.
In the 1980s the free-electron laser technology was seen as a prime player in the "Star Wars" missile defense shield. The Nuclear Treaty Program Office now thinks its precision could develop better detectors for underground nuclear tests and the use of chemical weapons.