A federal lawsuit involving the University’s College of Pharmacy that began in August may not be resolved until well into 2008.

In a case where a University pharmacy professor is accused of collecting and disseminating national pharmacy exam questions, the defendants, Flynn Warren, Jr. and the Board of Regents, and the plaintiff, The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, argued over pretrial motions for months.

A motion was filed Nov. 16 by Warren. His motion argued the case should be dismissed because of a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Before the Nov. 16 motion, the two sides debated how defendants should challenge the court’s subject matter jurisdiction. U.S. District Judge Clay Land wrote Nov. 6 the argument was an “unnecessary discovery dispute.”

Land wrote this argument delayed the court from deciding on the issue of subject matter jurisdiction.

“Regrettably, the parties have wasted substantial time and resources fighting over an issue that their briefs reveal they agree upon,” Land wrote.

The case against Warren and the Board of Regents was filed Aug. 3. According to court documents, Warren is accused of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract.

NABP owns the copyrights on the North American Pharmacist Licen-sure Examination and Georgia Mult-istate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exa-mination, the tests required to obt-ain a license to practice pharmacy.

On Oct. 25 five additional University pharmacy faculty were added to the lawsuit.

College of Pharmacy Associate Dean George Francisco, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Alan Wolfgang, Dean of Academics Svein Oie, Associate Professor Henry Cobb and Paul Brooks were listed in the complaint.

This is the second time NABP has investigated Warren for similar allegations.

Court documents say Warren asked students to memorize NAPLEX test questions and share them with him. He used these questions to create a packet and teach a review course for the exam.

NABP suspended administrations of the NAPLEX and the MPJE exams from Aug. 25 to Oct. 5.

While the tests have been reinstated, it does not look like the case will be resolved until next year. Land gave Warren and the Board of Regents a Jan. 18 deadline to file a response to the NABP’s response to Warren’s motion to dismiss the case.