Updated: May 2, 2019 / 9:12 PM

In Manhattan, a federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a trust that was established by renowned actor, Clint Eastwood, who attempted to claim full ownership of a patent that was related to glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that is believed to help protect the body from potential cell damage.

The Clinton Eastwood Trust sued Molecular Defenses Corp (MDC) last year, claiming that they had illegally acquired a patent that got derived from research of a late physician that the trust claimed it helped to fund.

The actor was seeking ownership of the patents to be assigned to his 1988 Clint Eastwood Trust.

In a court order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the judge claimed that the actor had failed “to allege that the Eastwood Trust, or any of the other plaintiffs, have or ever had any interest in the ‘611 patent or the ‘381 application”. As there was no real reason for the Eastwood Trust to have any right to the patents, the trust lacked the standing to assert a federal inventorship claim.

The Eastwood Trust held shares in the Antioxidant Pharmaceuticals Corporation (APC) after it had provided financial backing to APC and Harry Demopolous, its owner.

APC assigned an interest in all of its patents to MDC in exchange for shares in the company back In 2016, two weeks after Demopolous had suffered a stroke.

Demopolous had been working with Kevin Davis, the MDC owner to “consolidate his business,” court papers claimed.

In June of that year, Demopolous had filed a patent application for the antioxidant, glutathione, with Davis listed as a co-inventor. Both Demopolous and Davis also filed a derivative international patent application later that year in 2016.

Eastwood claimed that Davis had “nefariously” included his name as an inventor on the patent applications to “swindle the patents from Dr. Demopolous and APC’s shareholders.”

The actor was requesting that Dempolous be appointed as the sole inventor of the patent.