Re: NIH as publisher

["Richard Poynder" <aotg20@dsl.pipex.com>]

> Jan Velterop wrote:
> Maybe not quite a tax-payer-funded ice cream maker, but we do have a
> tax-payer-funded American Chemical Society. It's not just the generous
> tax concessions that come with a non-profit status, but also the NSF
> grant (I hear it was in the order of $25 million) that enabled the ACS
> to establish a chemical registry system. Eugene Garfield called it
> "remarkable" that the same society that accepted that grant now objects
> to the government using the data from it.  Garfield was extremely
> charitable.

>>>

Those who have followed the activities of ACS and its Chemical Abstracts
Service division over the years will recall that on 7th June 1990 the
online service Dialog made a 36-page complaint about ACS to the Washington
DC Federal Court, alleging unfair competition, and seeking $250 million
damages.

The action related to CAS' Chemical Registry Structure Database, and
followed the withdrawal by CAS of the full Registry Structure File from
Dialog on 1st January 1990, thereby denying Dialog the ability to offer
graphical substructure searching on its service (a feature available on a
competing online service jointly operated by CAS).

Dialog argued that CRSD "has no substitutes and thus constitutes a
separate and distinct market" which CAS was monopolising in contravention
of anti-trust laws.

Amongst the 10 claims made by Dialog were five alleging monopoly
practices, one alleging unfair competition, and one relating to a subsidy
of $15 million plus that had been provided by the National Science
Foundation at the time the CAS database was being created, and which
Dialog claimed obliged ACS to license all data at a fair price. This
obligation had been breached by CAS, alleged Dialog, both by its
withdrawal of connection table data essential for graphical structure
searching, and because CAS had for some years refused to licence its
abstracts of the chemical literature.

The Dialog lawsuit also claimed that its revenues from the CAS database
had fallen 45% between 1984 and 1988, partly due to steep rises in CAS
licence fees and royalties, and partly because of data being withheld.

ACS responded to the lawsuit by countersuing on issues of accounting. As I
recall the case was eventually settled out court.

Richard Poynder
www.richardpoynder.com