In January 1998 Kent State University hired Falana to develop new additives for liquid crystal displays.
Notably, Falana did not disclose his method publicly, thus this information was not available as a prior art to later filed patent applications.
Seed continued the research and synthesized several more molecules using Falana's method, several of which turned out to be promising for the use in liquid crystal displays.
At the bench trial, the District Court concluded that Falana contributed to the conception of the claimed compositions –of-matter by developing a previously unknown method for their preparation and ordered the USPTO to correct the inventorship (the USPTO records as of 16 June 2016 are still not corrected at and the patent maintenance fee lapsed on December 14, 2012).
§ 285 on three grounds: 1) that defendants engaged in inequitable conduct, 2) that they took an untenable position in defending this case, and 3) that their continued defense of this case in the face of testimony that lacked credibility and veracity was frivolous and bordered on bad faith and awarded attorney fees to Falana.