USC has filed a countersuit against UCSD and I won’t go into the nitty gritty details, but upon further examination of the contracts at issue, it appears Dr. Aisen has a “full, unrestricted right to use the Clinical Study Results”, including the computer data at issue, for academic, non-commercial purposes, at least under the contract to which he, Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd., and UCSD are parties. That is a key fact because UCSD now claims Dr. Aisen violated California Penal Code Sec. 502, which provides criminal penalties against anyone who:
“[k]nowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of
any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network, or takes or
copies any supporting documentation, whether existing or residing internal or
external to a computer, computer system, or computer network.”
The problem with this argument is that Dr. Aisen was not only given permission to access the data base, i.e., a license and key to access the data, but one of the two contracts gives him the “full, unrestricted” right to do so. The Lilly contract, NIH grant and Alzheimer’s Association grant also require his management of the data base as the Principal Investigator; in fact, a license to access and use such data is a fundamental requirement of his duties as PI.
Accordingly, all of the bluster about Dr. Aisen allegedly committing a crime is without basis in fact or reality. He not only had permission to access the data base, but a contractual right to do so. This doesn’t even include his professional duties - and HIPAA requirements – as a doctor to protect personal identifying information of his patients.