A long drawn dispute over an anti-corrosive paint which facilitates oil drill in deep water heads for the Supreme Court and may finally be decided this year.
Clement Uwemedemoh invented the paint, which he claims Mobil uses in Nigeria and replicates in other countries by infringing on the patent. Mobil does not dispute the infringement and agreed to pay damages awarded by the Appeal Court in 2009.
But five years on, Uwemedemoh is yet to receive a dime of what he reckons to be over $40 billion between 1999 and 2009. Calculated at $2 per barrel of crude oil Mobil lifts, and counting up to 2014, the amount is far greater.
Special Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO, delves into why Uwemedemoh, now aged 84 and saddled with visual impairment, is seeking the powers of the highest court in the land to enforce the payment of the judgment debt.
ExxonMobil Nigeria Country Managing Director, Mark Ward.
The Supreme Court in Abuja has fixed October 7 to adjudicate the final legal battle between multi-billion dollar global oil giant, Mobil Nigeria Producing Unlimited, and an indigenous inventor, Clement Uwemedemoh, in a patent case that has dragged in the courts for more than two decades.
Mobil Nigeria Producing Unlimited is a subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
Uwemedemoh, a professor of agronomy, invented an anti-corrosive special paint, the only enabling drilling chemical in deep-water blocks, which he alleged Mobil used without authorisation and without payment.
He and his foundation, Comandclem Nigeria Limited, are demanding compensation from Mobil for allegedly infringing on intellectual property rights.
The suit seeks to force Mobil to pay the judgment debt awarded to Uwemedemoh by the Appeal Court in Calabar on December 8, 2009.
Sources at Comandclem corporate headquarters in Surulere, Lagos said the debt, being court-awarded for damages and theft of an exclusive patent, runs into billions of dollars cumulatively because the infringement arose more than 20 years ago.
The source did not disclose the exact amount being pleaded in the enforcement suit, however.
Appeal Court unanimous judgment
The three Appeal Court justices ruled unanimously in December 2009: “I wish to say straight-away that having applied for the patent, and certificate No 13522 was issued (Exhibit 2), Comandclem Nigeria Limited became the registered patentee in the invention called anti-corrosive special paint for QIT (tran steel, blue, white enamel QAD) with effect from 5/8/99.
“The right to the patent in the invention will be vested in the respondents if there is a contract to that effect. Since the appellants alleged there was a verbal contract, but this was denied by the respondents, the right to the patent in the invention will still reside in the appellants who are the statutory inventor.
“Any infringement by the respondents or any other person will be actionable at the instance of the appellants starting from 5/8/99.”
The Appeal Court asked Mobil to pay Uwemedemoh $2 per barrel of oil it lifted from August 5, 1999. By Uwemedemoh’s calculation, this amounted to over $40 billion between August 5, 1999 and December 8, 2009 alone, not counting up to 2014.
Chasing after Mobil for payment
Ubong Ubong, an official of Comandclem Nigeria, showed TheNiche copies of several letters Mobil wrote to the company accepting liability and promising to pay the judgment debt.
In one letter written after the judgment was delivered, Mobil pleaded for time to tidy up its budget and commence payment.
But Ubong alleged that each time Uwemedemoh met representatives of Mobil they came up with excuses for delaying payment.
“They have been using this tactics since we got the judgment award,” Ubong alleged. We suspect they have been having protection from some powerful quarters since this matter started.
“Mobil is a strategic investor in the country’s oil and gas sector and has big projects in partnership with the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation).
“This started long before the present government. But we believe all this legal rigmarole Mobil is doing from court to court is just to buy time. Each time we came to court they would want an adjournment. The whole world knows they have no case.
Ubong added that Uwemedemoh made the invention for posterity to save the oil and gas sector from huge loses in drilling operations due to pipeline corrosion.
“Since the invention in the 1980s it is now possible for oil companies, especially the multinationals, to drill and make huge harvests, both onshore and off-shore, because of the anti-corrosive special paint.
“Our worry is that this is an exclusive patent, a world class heritage which Mobil has trivialised, stolen and mass produced illegally in far-flung places, thereby robbing Nigeria, especially Comandclem, trillions of naira for more than two decades.
“It is unheard of that a world class patent product in this 21st century can be so brazenly trampled upon. Would that happen to Bill Gates’ patent or Forbe’s brand or Facebook inventor, and the offenders have the guts to play pranks the way Mobil is doing?”
Nigeria’s scientific breakthrough
Ubong described the anti-corrosive special paint patent as the “first scientific and technological breakthrough transferred from Nigeria to the whole world.”
The invention has the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) certification patent number RP 13522 and is listed on Comandclem’s website as an exclusive patent.
Uwemedemoh traversed laboratories in America and Europe to formulate solution to pipeline corrosion, then the bane of oil drilling suffered by multinational oil companies in the 1980s.
Before the latter day plague of pipeline vandalisation in the Niger Delta, pipeline corrosion, caused by unscientific protection of pipeline coating, was the main reason for oil spillage, restricting drilling in off-shore deep-water blocks.
But in the last few years, it has become attractive for oil and gas explorationists to veer into deep-water prospecting and drilling, arising largely from the application of the anti-corrosive paint, an enabling chemical called QIT, invented by Uwemedemoh.
The man, now 84 years old, had a permanent eye damage while performing test experiments on the paint. He has received about 46 local and international awards from within and outside the science community.
Test case for local content protection
Industry sources argued that the Nigerian government should use the Uwemedemoh case to protect its local content policy.
A member of the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), Geoffrey Uwem, told TheNiche: “We know about the case of Uwemedemoh. That invention is classic. It is a pity that for long he never enjoyed protection from Nigeria and he was duped.
“Nigeria is a signatory to the WIPO. And the invention has a patent number issued by the WIPO. That means, in the eyes of the law, the intellectual property in question is owned by Uwemedemoh and a registered patent is exclusive after tests and certification.
“So I don’t see Mobil winning the case. May be they are still buying time.”
Uwem advised Mobil to agree on a reasonable payment to Uwemedemoh.
When TheNiche visited the corporate office of Mobil in Lekki, Lagos an official in the public relations department, who did not disclose his name, admitted that, “yes, we have a case with Uwemedemoh at the Supreme Court on October 7.”
He declined to provide more details, and instead directed TheNiche back to Uwemedemoh.
Uwemedemoh said: “I have hired more SANs (Senior Advocates of Nigeria) to beef up our legal team. The invention is for Nigerians and future generations unborn. I will follow it to the last.”
