Moral rights under the Copyright Act require proof of significant alteration and adverse effect on the author's honour, which the Plaintiff failed to establish.

JUDGMENT

Mohd Radzi Harun J:

Introduction

[1] The Plaintiff filed this Suit against the Defendants seeking for a declaration under s 25 of the Copyright Act 1987 (" CA ") that the Defendants had infringed her moral rights over her academic dissertation entitled "Isolation, Expansion, and In-Vitro Characterization of Mesenchymal Stem Cells of Dental Origin" ("Masters Dissertation"). The Defendants successfully secured a registration for a patent titled "Isolation, Expansion, and Characterization of Precursor / Stem Cells from Dental Tissues" at the Register of Patents Malaysia on 23 July 2018 with grant number MY-166810-A ("the Patent"). The Plaintiff alleged that the Patent had copied more than half of the contents and data of the Masters Dissertation, where the contents, specifically for the methodology aspect, have been modified and used in the Patent without the consent of the Plaintiff. Consequently, the Plaintiff prayed for the registration of the Patent in the name of the 1st Defendant ("D1") to be invalidated or alternatively for an injunction ordering the Defendants to remove the names of the 2nd and 3rd Defendants ("D2", "D3") as the inventors of the Patent, and damages.

[2] The Defendants counterclaimed that the Plaintiff's action was an abuse of the Court's process and the Suit was filed as an attempt to damage the Defendants' reputation and goodwill and to extort wholly extraneous benefit or damages. The Defendants claimed that the Plaintiff has unlawfully interfered with the trade and business of D1 with the mala fide intention to unfairly profit from the said Patent owned by D1 and/or to unfairly restrain D1 and its trade and/or business and/or to cause maximum disruption to D1's business and had caused D1 to suffer loss of investment funding as well as potential investment funding opportunity amounting to RM6,000,000.00 and irreparable damage to its business, reputation and goodwill.

[3] The Plaintiff's claim was dismissed and the Defendants' counterclaim was partially allowed.

[4] The Plaintiff now appeal against that decision.

Brief Facts

[5] The Plaintiff pursued her Masters at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya in 2010 and she successfully graduated with a Masters degree in 2013.

[6] D1 is a clinical-stage biotechnology company, developing novel and proprietary therapies intended to extend and enhance the quality of human life. D1's main business is R&D, manufacturing and commercializing regenerative medicine products. D1 was an industry research collaborator with the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya and together, they had conducted many joint research works.

[7] D2 was employed by D1 as the Research Consultant due to his vast experience in setting up a Good Manufacturing Laboratory (GMP) facility as well as in stem cells research in 2010 and was made D1's Chief Technology Officer in 2012. Since 2017 D2 worked as a researcher at CryoCord Sdn Bhd.

[8] D3 was a Research Associate at D1 but has since left D1 and carries out freelance consultancy for GMP and ISO laboratories.

[9] On 3 February 2009 D2 and DW4, Professor Dr Sabri Musa, who was then the Head of Conservative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, applied to the University of Malaya for a research grant for a research project entitled "Isolation, Characterization and Multilineage Differentiation of Post-Natal Stem Cells from Dental Pulp" ("Collaboration Project"). The duration of the Collaboration Project was 36 months from May 2009-April 2012. The team from the Faculty of Dentistry University of Malaya collaborated with Stempeutics Research Malaysia. D2 was the representative of Stempeutics Research Malaysia and was the scientist advisor to the collaboration team. The expected Research Output from this Collaboration Project (refer to pp 23 - 38, Part B, Bundle A1, at p 30) are as follows:

(a) establishing industry-academia interaction in stem cell technology;

(b) at least 4 publications in high impact journals;

(c) potentia