The Red and Black

Issue date: 7/22/08 Section: News

Judgment from U.S. District Court

A federal court judge ruled in favor of the Board of Regents and administrators at the University's College of Pharmacy in a lawsuit brought against them by a national pharmacy group.

U.S. District Judge Clay Land dismissed charges of trade secret misappropriation - an accusation of stealing and disseminating test questions - breach of contract and copyright infringement against the BOR and UGA administrators. The case filed against them by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy accused them of collecting and disseminating pharmacy test questions for the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination and Georgia Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination to students during the past few years.

The judgment states "Plaintiff shall recover nothing of these Defendants. These Defendants shall also recover costs of this action."

But legal issues still loom for the two groups, as well as two professors also named in the federal suit. Land ruled in May that former professor Flynn Warren Jr. and clinical associate professor Henry Cobb III remain liable for copyright infringement in federal court, while a lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court in May claims the BOR, and Warren breached a 1995 agreement when they continued to copy and transcribe NABP copyrighted materials.

Both Warren and Cobb filed notice their intent to seek a demand for trial by jury.

The Red & Black first reported in August that Warren and the BOR were named as defendants in the federal court case, in which they were accused of collecting and disseminating pharmacy test questions to students during the past few years. Cobb was added to the lawsuit in October, but is not included in the state suit since he was not party to the 1995 agreement.

Warren is accused of copyright infringement because NABP owns the copyrights on the exam questions. Court papers say he asked students to memorize NAPLEX test questions and share them with him. He collected the tests' contents and created a review packet.

The NAPLEX is required to obtain a license to practice pharmacy and is used by all 50 states' boards of pharmacy. After the lawsuit was filed in August, the executive committee of NABP decided to suspend all administrations of the NAPLEX and did not administer the test nationwide for several months.

Warren is faced with these accusations because he was never "granted a license ... to copy, sell, distribute, prepare derivative works from, or otherwise offered to transfer the ownership of the copyrights of the NABP Examination Questions, to which NABP has exclusive rights," the initial court papers read.

The breach of contract charge stems from a 1995 settlement agreement, in which Warren and the BOR said they will "cease and desist for profit or otherwise from all past, present and future copying, transcribing or other infringing use of NABP copyrighted materials, including but not limited to patient profiles, sample questions, or other copyrighted information."

Read The Red & Black's coverage of the lawsuit between NABP and the University.

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