INTELLECTUAL CHAIN GANG

Petr Taborsky doesn't fit the part of a hardened convict. Born into a Czech family that immigrated to the U.S. when he was six, he is articulate and soft-spoken, an idealistic 34-year-old science nerd who hopes someday to conduct cancer research. He is also principled and somewhat stubborn--so stubborn, in fact, that the state of Florida put him on a chain gang last year, and now holds him in a minimum-security facility.

His crime? In a case with widespread implications for universities increasingly dependent on corporate research grants, he was jailed for "stealing" his own notebooks and ideas and then refusing a judge's orders not to exploit them. He is fighting for what he believes are the intellectual property rights of thousands of faculty members and graduate students.

Taborsky's Kafka-like ordeal began in 1987, when as a student at the University of South Florida, he took an $8.50-an-hour lab-assistant job to help pay his tuition. He was assigned to a $20,000 project contracted by a subsidiary of Florida Progress, a local power company, to determine if bacteria can be used to extract ammonia from clinoptilolite, a clay used in filtering water. The clay, similar to Kitty Litter, absorbs ammonia from water and can be cleaned and used over and over.

Unfortunately, the clay also absorbs calcium, and in the cleaning process used by the power company, the calcium forms a sludge that clogs the machinery. If bacteria were used for the cleanup, the company reasoned, only the ammonia would be extracted, and the problem would be solved.

It soon became apparent, however, that the bacterial approach wouldn't work, and the project was terminated. Taborsky's supervisor, Professor Robert Carnahan, assigned him to menial jobs in the lab and, because the Florida Progress grant had terminated, began paying him from other budgets.

Still, Taborsky remained intrigued by the clinoptilolite challenge and continued tinkering with the clay after hours--eventually stumbling onto what he thought might be the answer. Ever inquisitive, he had been heating the clay and charting its behavior to determine how much its absorption diminished with increasing temperatures. One day, while looking at his graphs, he discovered that above 1,500 [degrees] F the clinoptilolite starts rejecting calcium.

At that temperature, Taborsky concluded, the small pockets in the clay that absorb calcium close down while the ones that accept ammonia remain open. By spring 1988, he had gathered enough data to make his case to Carnahan and a Florida Progress representative, who told him that his idea could be "worth millions."

And what might his share be? Taborsky asked. "Nothing," said Carnahan, explaining that under terms of the Florida Progress contract, the process he had developed belonged to the company. But Carnahan proposed a consolation prize. If Taborsky would voluntarily turn the rights of his discovery over to Florida Progress, the company would offer him a staff job.