JUDGMENT
Azizah Nawawi CJSS:
Introduction
[1] This appeal is filed by the Appellant/Plaintiff to challenge the decision of the learned High Court in dismissing the Appellant's claims for infringement of moral rights and invalidation of patents against the Respondents/Defendants.
Background Facts
[2] The plaintiff pursued her Master's at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya ('UM').
[3] The 1st defendant ('D1') is a biotechnology company and industry collaborator with UM. The second and 3rd defendants, (D2 and D3), acted as research consultant and research associate, respectively.
[4] D2 and the Head of Conservative Dentistry (D4) at UM, had secured a research grant for a project entitled "Isolation, Characterization and Multilineage Differentiation of Post-Natal Stem Cells from Dental Pulp" ('Collaboration Project'), aimed in part at developing UM's expertise in stem cell research through postgraduate programmes. The Collaboration Project, spanning 36 months from May 2009 to April 2012, involved a joint effort between the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, and Stempeutics Research Malaysia.
[5] The purpose of the plaintiff's involvement in the Collaboration Project was to conduct research and to collect data. Upon the completion of the research, the plaintiff was to use the data to complete her dissertation, which, once finalized, would enable her to obtain her Master's certificate.
[6] Subsequently, the defendants obtained registration of a patent titled "Isolation, Expansion and Characterization of Precursor/Stem Cells from Dental Tissues" in the Malaysian Register of Patents ('patent').
[7] The plaintiff alleged that the patent reproduced more than half of the contents and data from her Master's dissertation, including modifications to the methodology, without her knowledge or consent.
[8] The plaintiff then filed this suit seeking a declaration under s 25 of the Copyright Act 1987 ('CA 1987') that the defendants had infringed her moral rights in her Master's dissertation, "Isolation, Expansion, and In-Vitro Characterization of Mesenchymal Stem Cells of Dental Origin".