The Tragedy of Publication

Sometimes the patent laws really can screw up your day. Again we see the importance of contemporaneous recognition and appreciation. From this article:

Unfortunately, the best of these cancer-fighting compounds cannot be patented and developed by a pharmaceutical company, because it was published before the discovery of its incredible potential.

In 1997, John Huffman, a Clemson faculty member for 45 years who has led this research at the school for 20 years, created a compound and named it with his initials, JWH-133. He then published it in a 1998 edition of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, not realizing the possibility of a revolutionary drug coming from the compound.