I guess I should just reply with “B.” since you replied with A. :-)

More seriously, 

Both A & B will need to have real hard proof of their claims as this is a real 
mess in which they got themselves into.

It seems as A despite not been hired by B succeeded in getting another 
position, which is good. B has taken advantage of his/her power position by not 
hiring A. He/she will find excuses why A was not a good fit blabla. From a 
moral perspective B sucks.
Just imagine what A in B’s lab could have achieved by having someone in the 
project already knowing everything about the dubious protein with a four letter 
PDB code. Must be one of those Ego’s out there without true team leadership 
skills.

Regarding the IP, that’s more difficult and again will require written evidence 
unless a patent has been filed and then that should be relatively easy and have 
the lawyers go after it.

All of these actions require extra attention and mental resources - is it worth 
for A? If you just want to be right, then read on to the bottom of this email.

Is the publication in C formally correct? Other than that A claims B took 
his/her coordinates to solve the structure. All that really counts is that the 
science around PDB XXXX is correct.

From my own experience during my postdoc time, we had a paper under review for 
nine months. I know who one of the reviewers was because he copy-protected his 
comments in the pdf - unfortunately for him on a Mac your login user account is 
added per default to the pdf as creator, and that was just his plain name. 
The day after his paper was accepted at a different journal, ours was finally 
accepted as well. It is remarkable how some figures in his paper just adopt the 
same orientation and show the same things as ours. I never followed up on this 
as it was not worth my time. I will not reveal the authors names but I’m sure 
smart pople like you can write a little perl script to query the PDB in a 
meaningful manner.

This was more than 2 cents I wanted to add to this discussion and hopefully A 
does see the value in my last paragraph.

Jürgen 


__________________________________________
Jürgen Bosch, Ph.D.
Division of Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy/Immunology
Case Western Reserve University
2109 Adelbert Rd, BRB 835
Cleveland, OH 44106
Phone: 216.368.7565
Fax: 216.368.4223
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jubosch/

CEO & Co-Founder at InterRayBio, LLC

Johns Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

> On Aug 21, 2019, at 4:49 AM, Anastassis Perrakis <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Something is unclear to me in the original question. What does “has used his 
> pdb for a publication” mean? Somebody used an entry already in the PDB? 
> Somebody used a “.pdb” coordinates file for publication (without “.mtz”)? 
> What was and is the relationship between A and B? 
> 
> In any case, assuming that A and B are not in talking terms (have you tried 
> through a mediator?), it is the director or designated ombudsperson of the 
> institute of A, that should review the case internally, and officially 
> contact the corresponding person of the institute of B. I can’t see what the 
> journal has to do with it, without a settlement between institutes. I also do 
> not consider a direct contact if A to the director of B appropriate. There 
> should be procedures for these cases. 
> 
> A. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On 21 Aug 2019, at 10:12, Mark J van Raaij <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Flemming,
>> 
>> As I understand it (I may be wrong), the final responsible institutions are 
>> those where the authors work. But as you say, they sometimes don't even 
>> reply - or they just may be very slow because they want to be really sure 
>> before committing to any answer.
>> 
>> But the journal has a responsibility also, to retract the paper if there is 
>> a serious suspicion the data were not obtained ethically. Of course, it may 
>> be difficult to prove ownership of a pdb file, if both authors claim 
>> ownership there is not really a way the journal can decide who is right. In 
>> my opinion, the journal should officially contact the institutions where the 
>> authors work to try and resolve this. The institutions may take the journal 
>> more seriously than a single researcher.
>> 
>> A generally respected institution that may advise on authorship disputes is 
>> COPE, Committee on Publication Ethics: https://publicationethics.org/ 
>> <https://publicationethics.org/>
>> May also take a while though...
>> They have a database with anonymised examples of previously resolved 
>> disputes that may be helpful - you may find a similar situation on which 
>> they have "ruled". These are of course not legal rulings, but are considered 
>> by their members (most respectable journals) as a strong guideline.
>> This case may have similarities:
>> https://publicationethics.org/case/claim-stolen-data-and-demand-retractions 
>> <https://publicationethics.org/case/claim-stolen-data-and-demand-retractions>
>> 
>> Best of luck,
>> 
>> Mark
>> 
>> Mark J van Raaij
>> Dpto de Estructura de Macromoleculas
>> Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia - CSIC
>> calle Darwin 3
>> E-28049 Madrid, Spain
>> tel. (+34) 91 585 4616
>> 
>> 
>>> On 20 Aug 2019, at 17:45, Flemming Goery <[email protected] 
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear All, 
>>> 
>>> A and B belong to 2 different institutes. A claimed B has used his pdb for 
>>> a publication in Journal C. Journal C did not give the retraction, but 
>>> permit complain related to the journal publication author issue, with the 
>>> prerequisite journal C did not have the authority on authorship dispute. 
>>> Then A has e-mailed to the institute head of B with academic misconduct by 
>>> B as claim, the institute head of B did not give reply.
>>> 
>>> In this situation, can A have the journal  authorship  dispute settled by a 
>>> neutral reviewer (Journal C view: you (A) need to reach out to the 
>>> institutions that have authority to adjudicate on such matters, as 
>>> investigation and adjudication on authorship claims falls outside the remit 
>>> of journal editors. )? Who are qualified as the neutral reviewer so that 
>>> the review decision can be submitted to Journal C?
>>> 
>>> If you believe you are qualified, or you know somebody or some organization 
>>> qualified, please let me know and I will introduce the issue to you by 
>>> separate e-mail (it is best not disseminated, am I right?)
>>> 
>>> Best regards.
>>> 
>>> Flemming
>>> 
>>> 
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