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Abstract
[...]a boiling patent dispute between the collaborators also showcases the complexities of teamwork, as the two groups battle over whether NIH researchers were unfairly left off as co-inventors on a pivotal vaccine patent application. Moderna has filed several patent applications on its COVID-19 vaccine that name NIH investigators as co-inventors. In an August statement to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Moderna acknowledged that the NIH had submitted three of its researchers as co-inventors, but stood by its decision to exclude them from the application. The patent in question could be particularly crucial because it covers the principal component of the vaccine, says Christopher Morten, who specializes in intellectualproperty law at Columbia Law School in New York City: "A claim on the active ingredient in a pharmaceutical product is important, because it can be impossible for competitors to design around it" Is it unusual for collaborators to fight over inventor status on a patent?