I am a little surprised that no lawyers in the group posted re the patent by BP. I am not a patent lawyer, but I do have some expertise on Intellectual Property. The key is the agreement between Cytodyn and Dr. Bruce P. If he was hired as a consultant. law favors any intellectual property created by him as his, no matter where it was created. The ownership of the IP can be modified specifically in the consultancy agreement. But without such modification the law would support the consultant. If however, Dr P was hired in an employee category, he would have to have a specific caveat included in his employee contract for him to claim the intellectual property. So without the specifics of the agreement between Dr. BP and CytoDyn we can only speculate.
Of course in order for the intellectual property to be sustained, it would have to be something that is unique and not be merely the obvious and natural implication of Cytodyn,s intellectual property. I leave that debate to those who are the MDs and researchers on this board.
I would invite any pertinent lawyers to add or modify my opinion above.