INVISTA sues Dupont for withholding 'inventors'

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - A Koch Industries Inc subsidiary sued DuPont Co (DD.N) on Wednesday to force the U.S. chemical company to provide three staffers the unit needs to defend itself in a patent dispute.

The lawsuit comes one day before a hearing in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan pertaining to another lawsuit in which subsidiaries of privately held Koch Industries are looking for $800 million in damages from DuPont.

Both lawsuits stem from the Koch subsidiaries' $4 billion purchase of DuPont's nylon, polyester and spandex operations in April 2004.

Less than a month after closing the purchase, the subsidiaries, collectively known as INVISTA, say they learned that some of the 14 plants in five countries they had bought from DuPont did not comply with environmental, health and safety laws.

DuPont has rejected the accusations, saying they were "grossly exaggerated".

In addition to the plants, DuPont also assigned to INVISTA rights to an advanced technology for manufacturing a chemical used in the production of nylon polymer, Wednesday's complaint said. DuPont had provided the technology, known as Gen 3, to a French company, Rhodianyl S.N.C., under a confidentiality agreement, according to the complaint.

INVISTA learned that a Rhodianyl affiliate, Rhodia Polyamide Intermediates S.A.S. (RHA.PA), had filed several patent applications in the United States and Europe claiming that its employees had invented key aspects of the Gen 3 technology.

INVISTA, based in Wichita, Kansas, is arbitrating its dispute with Rhodia before a tribunal in Geneva and has been given until June 6 to provide its defense, according to the complaint.

INVISTA said that before then, it needs to interview three DuPont employees, identified in the complaint only as "the inventors" of Gen 3. DuPont has refused to make those people available to INVISTA despite agreeing to do so in the original purchase agreement, the complaint said.