By Doug Macron
A letter sent in 2004 by officials at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the University of Massachusetts indicates that RNAi intellectual property at the heart of an ongoing legal battle belongs to the Max Planck Institute and therefore should be viewed as a confirmation of the ownership of the disputed IP, attorneys for plaintiffs Max Planck and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals argued this week.