Cosmetics giant L’Oréal is being accused of stealing patented skin care technology by a former Roman Catholic monk. Wait, what? Unfortunately, this is not #fakenews.
According to the Associated Press, Dennis Wyrzykowski and his company, Carmel Laboratories, claim L’Oréal stole his patented technology to use in its anti-aging RevitaLift products. Wyrzykowski’s technology, a cream called Easeamine, was developed by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and featured adenosine, a chemical compound found in the heart that can purportedly boost skin elasticity.
In 2009, the cream was licensed to Wyrzykowski, which allowed him to sell it for $65 a tube as part of his religious charity’s (the Teresian Carmelites) efforts to raise money for the poor and support their work with prisoners, addicts and children.
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This June, Wyrzykowski filed a lawsuit in conjunction with UMass, seeking unspecified damages and alleging that L’Oréal was aware of UMass’s patent for the technology and was denied patents for their products because of it, but made their products with adenosine anyway.
“For me, L’Oréal pillaged the poor, that’s what they did,” Wyrzykowski told the Associated Press, adding that L’Oréal’s use of his technology severely hurt his business.
L’Oréal has asked that the case be dismissed because its use of adenosine falls outside of the patents’ terms. “While we admire the purpose of the work these two organizations are doing together, we find no merit in these allegations,” L’Oréal wrote in an email to the Associated Press. “We expressed this point of view in many conversations we had with the Teresian Carmelites and their outside legal advisors over the past two years.”
Stay tuned to NewBeauty.com for updates!
