I am asking you as a friend for advice. I am having a great deal of
difficulty in escaping from Syracuse University with research topics and
software which I will be able to pursue at Florida State in a relatively
free fashion without fear of law suits from either Syracuse University or
the Company WebWisdom.com, that expects to license large chunks of work I
did in last few years. As I am deserting Syracuse and those in charge of
WebWisdom.com are not, the University has a natural reason to support the
company's interest. There is debate on two major issues - the license to
the company and what I discuss here, a patent in an area where all agree
I had the most critical ideas and even wrote large chunks of the
software. I have queried the submittal process for the patent in the two
areas summarized below in a quote from a letter written to the university
by my lawyer.

1) "Syracuse University is employing a lawyer to prepare a potentially
important patent in the area where much of Fox's personal detailed work
has been. However this lawyer is now asking Fox to urgently to sign
something even though all agree that both content of patent and list of
inventors is incomplete. Is this wise?

2) The patent (especially with its proposed extensions) includes ideas
clearly reduced to practice and those which he thinks are almost
certainly correct but where the ideas need much more research to refine.
Dr. Fox would like to pursue this research but is worried that inclusion
of ideas in patents automatically gives them status of "reduction to
practice" and hence effectively renders research problematical given
current license."

I have also sent email with such queries to the patent lawyer but neither
my email nor the above queries have been answered. Instead on Thursday,
the university lawyer ordered me to sign some document where inter alia,
I testify to truthfulness of the patent claim. He said they would proceed
without my signature if necessary but that would cost some $15,000 for
which I would be personally liable. As I in writing (see item 1 above)
have testified that patent is obviously imprecise, my lawyer advised me
that it would be perjury to sign. Instead I volunteered to sign a
modified disclosure with an addition saying "List of inventors and claims
was incomplete". The university lawyer said Patent Office could not
accept such a proviso - seemingly confirming my lawyer's advice. The
university I gather must act in next few days to meet some patent office
deadline based on initial filing of patent by lawyer (without seemingly
checking with anybody) in August 99.

So I am very mystified by this process which seems not obviously
defensible legally and is presumably trying to exploit me somehow. I
wonder what rights the primary inventor of a patent has? Can university
add any claims it likes. What happens if I think claims are either wrong
or as in item 2 above, possibly correct but still research ideas. What
should I do! Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you