Catholic Monk Sues Manufacturer Of Beauty Products

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A surprising new lawsuit against a commercial giant is being waged in the United States. This time a former Catholic monk filed a lawsuit in federal court against one of the world's largest cosmetic manufacturers: L'Oreal.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that religious Dennis Wyrzykowski and his company, Carmel Laboratories LLC, are accusing that company of stealing the patented technology of an anti-wrinkle cream that their charity was selling to raise money for the poor.

The complaint indicates that the cream called Easeamine, was manufactured thanks to a discovery made by two scientists at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine, which was based on using adenosine, a chemical compound found in the heart, that helps promote elasticity of the skin.

According to the lawsuit, despite the fact that L'Oreal knew that the educational entity had the patent for the technology that adenosine used, it tried to obtain patents for products based on the same technique and, when these were denied due to the similarity they maintained with which he already had the university, in any case he went ahead with a line of products based on adenosine technology

In an interview Tuesday, Wyrzykowski, who heads a religious charity known as Theresian Carmelites in Millbury, said he has been selling the cream online for $ 65 a piece to support Carmelites in their work with prisoners, drug addicts and schoolchildren, but that since L'Oreal launched its line of similar products, its business was reduced by a tenth.

L'Oreal, which is based in Paris and has U. S. operations in New York, has asked a United States District Court judge to dismiss the lawsuit. His attorneys argue that his client's use of adenosine is outside the University of Massachusetts patents.

"While we admire the purpose of the work these two organizations are doing together, we found no merit in these allegations," L'Oreal said in an email to The Associated Press. "We have expressed this point of view in many conversations we had with the Teresian Carmelites and their external legal advisers in the past two years."

James Dobson Jr., a retired cardiovascular physiologist who was one of two UMass scientists to make the discovery, said the technology is potentially in the millions of dollars.

"If you know that a patent is out there and you voluntarily infringe it, that really bothers me," he said. "What also bothers me is that the Teresian Carmelites were going to use the income for the poor and disadvantaged in central Massachusetts and that was a noble thing."