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

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 <[log in to unmask]> 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 <[log in to unmask]> 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/
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:

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 <[log in to unmask]> 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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