Clint Eastwood Sues over Medical Patents

Over the last few weeks stories have been circulating around the internet over this particular story. Thank you to Dave Turner for bringing the story to my attention.

The famed filmmaker says he has undertaken herculean efforts to obtain information about his investment into a company researching a diabetes drug. Clint Eastwood is giving new meaning to the term "multiphyphenate." He's an actor-director-producer. Apparently, he's also a philanthropist, healthcare investor and, now, a patent avenger seeking to reclaim intellectual property that could be used to combat diabetes and other diseases.

Eastwood went to court with the kind of production that one would hardly expect from him. According to the complaint, he has long been investing in the work of Dr. Harry Demopoulos, who before dying last year had tiny roles in movies plus was a medical researcher credited with inventing the field of free radical pathology. Dr. Demopoulos devoted much of his work to the research and development of glutathione, a supplement said to boost the immune system. Eastwood is now suing Molecular Defenses Corporation and its chief Kevin Davis.

As a substantial shareholder to Demopoulos' company, Antioxidant Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Eastwood says he is seeking redress for "swindling through outright usurpation, covert intellectual property transfers and corporate shell games."

Specifically, Eastwood says that in late 2015, APC went through an alleged restructuring, consolidating businesses under the umbrella of a newly formed entity, Molecular Defenses Corporation.

"In the midst of this allegedly voluntary restructuring, however, Dr. Demopoulos unexpectedly suffered a massive stroke in early 2016," states the complaint. "It was at this tragic time when Defendants pounced, seizing Dr. Demopoulos’ business (and six U.S. glutathione patents) for their own ends."

Eastwood alleges that Davis incorporated another entity — also named Molecular Defenses Corporation — and while Dr. Demopoulos was undergoing recovery in the hospital, "Defendants caused the preparation of a subscription agreement — purportedly signed by Dr. Demopoulos by his 'Attorney in Fact' — providing for the assignment of the six U.S. glutathione patents from APC to Defendant Molecular Defense Holdings, LLC in exchange for membership rights in this Defendant-entity."

What Eastwood says he didn't know was that APC had already technically dissolved 15 years prior without any distribution of assets to shareholders such as himself.

"Dr. Demopoulos passed away a short time later, leaving unfinished (and in shambles) his alleged efforts to consolidate his business and account for the resulting rights and equity owed the shareholders," the complaint continues. "Since Dr. Demopoulos’ stroke, the Eastwood Trust has undertaken herculean efforts to obtain information from Defendants concerning the business operations, shareholders and intellectual property of Dr. Demopoulos’ companies, including with respect to the Defendant- entities. But Defendants refuse to provide even the bare-minimum; instead, they spent the last two years employing a strategy of inordinate delay with kind words, empty promises and the trickling of incomplete, contradictory and the vaguest of information. All the while, during which time they solicited additional investments from the Eastwood Trust, Defendants have been working to develop and profit from all of the glutathione patents that rightfully belong to the shareholders of APC, including the Eastwood Trust."

Eastwood wants declarations over inventorship and a constructive trust over patents. He also is claiming conversion, and is represented by Paul LiCalsi and other attorneys at Robins Kaplan.

Davis couldn't be reached for comment.