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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND SOUTHERN DIVISION MEDIMMUNE, INC., Plaintiff, Civil Action No. AW-02-1135 vs. CENTOCOR, INC., et al., Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION Currently pending before the Court in this declaratory judgment action brought by MedImmune, Inc. ("Plaintiff") against Centocor, Inc. ("Centocor") and the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University and Columbia University ("Universities")(collectively, "Defendants") are the following pending motions: (1) the motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction filed by the Universities [116]; (2) the motion to dismiss for failure to plead with sufficient particularity filed by the Universities [63, 64]; and (3) the motion to determine the party bearing the burden of proof filed by MedImmune [59].1 The parties have also come before the Court for resolution of a lingering dispute regarding the provisions of the protective order that will govern discovery in the case.2 The motions have been fully briefed. On July 10, 2003, the Court held a motions hearing at which time each side was afforded the opportunity to present argument on the motions. Upon consideration of the arguments made in support of, and opposition to, the motions,

MedImmune also filed a Motion to File Surreply on the motion to dismiss for failure to plead with particularity [114]. Because the Court is ready to resolve the issue raised over the specificity in the Amended Complaint, the Court will DENY that motion as moot. Although no formal motion has ever been filed regarding the protective order dispute, the parties have remitted to the Court numerous pleadings in which they propounded their arguments on the question of the wording of the protective order [61, 66, 72, 94, 96, 98].
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the Court makes the following determinations. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND The following is a summary of the facts necessary for adjudication of the pending motions. At the heart of this controversy is a patent which purports to cover "methods for producing functional immunoglobulin" and relates to the use of genetically altered cells to generate antibody molecules in the laboratory. The inventors ("Applicants") applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") on August 27, 1984. The PTO issued the Patent ("`715 patent") fourteen years later in 1998. The `715 patent has been assigned to the Universities. Prior to the issuance of the patent on November 10, 1992, Centocor obtained an exclusive license to the patent through an agreement with the Universities.3 In the years preceding the issuance of the patent, and prior to Plaintiff's awareness of it, Plaintiff was developing a drug called Synagis

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Maryland Law