A visiting Japanese research fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis, Yoichi Ito, has been charged with stealing research data and material from his host laboratory. Ito, who worked in the cartilage and connective tissue laboratory, had completed a two-year research fellowship and was due to return to Japan days before his arrest.

Ito's defense seems to be one of ignorance about the US regulations regarding intellectual property on scientific data (Nature 398, 448; 1999). However, an FBI search warrant affidavit states that Ito was informed of the rules on several occasions during his fellowship and was shown a video explaining the proprietary nature of research data two months before his anticipated departure.

In addition to copying his own research—which is permitted under laboratory policy—Ito also copied a large amount of data relating to projects he had never worked on, dating back to 1990. Ito's own gene-sequencing data could not be located on the central computer and his laboratory notebooks and key tissue slides are also missing. The evening before Ito was to fly to Hawaii to get married on March 18th, a security officer found him taking photographs of laboratory equipment.

Moreover, according to the affidavit, Ito's Lab Supervisor, James Fitzsimmons, claimed that when research fellows join the Clinic, they are presented with written and verbal instructions that all work products, including original notes, are laboratory property. Another Japanese researcher, Takumi Fukumoto, at the laboratory, confirmed this and noted that in January all scientists, including Ito, were shown a "Mayo Integrity Video," which repeated the message that their work was the property of the clinic.

Pending his preliminary hearing, Ito has been released on bail of $25,000, and was ordered to surrender his passport, remain within Minnesota and report regularly to the court.