An engineer claims Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute is falsely claiming credit for artificial intelligence security and privacy inventions he created.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, attorneys for Richard Malina claim he created a number of inventions during his personal time and with his own resources. The inventions had nothing to do with the scope of his work at CMU, where Malina was employed for four years.
“We can not comment on pending litigation,” said Cassia Crogan, a CMU spokeswoman, “but we look forward to addressing this fully through the legal process.”
Malina, of Robinson, has had a multi-decade career as a recognized expert in complex software architecture and real-time control systems, the lawsuit said. His experience and expertise led him to being hired at CMU’s Software Engineering Institute in 2021.
In May 2025, Malina began a personal study to develop a suite of AI security and privacy concepts and platforms. He created and documented his inventions on a university holiday, “Community Appreciation Day” on May 23, the lawsuit said.
Malina shared his inventions with CMU to check if the university, or one of its sponsors, would be interested in funding future developments, the lawsuit said.
CMU agreed Malina’s inventions were his own and declined interest in funding them, saying in July 2025: “This is clear-cut. This is not CMU (intellectual property.) End of story,” according to the lawsuit.
That same month, Malina signed a separation agreement with CMU.
Months later, CMU’s Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation asserted the university solely owned Malina’s personal inventions, relying on theories based in salary funding, “computer logs,” and “SEI-funded resources,” the lawsuit said.
Then, the lawsuit said, CMU falsely represented to the U.S. Air Force that, based on its funding of the Software Engineering Institute, the Air Force also had rights to Malina’s inventions.
“In short, according to CMU’s unilateral and arbitrary internal decision-making, in just a matter of months, Mr. Malina went from owning 100% of his inventions to owning nothing,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit asserts that when Malina challenged CMU’s claims of his property, the university would not follow the dispute procedures outlined in his contract. CMU later proposed an alternative adjudication process, which Malina declined because it did not resemble the process outlined in his contract.
Malina seeks compensatory damages in excess of $50,000 as well as consequential and punitive damages; and to rule that CMU and the Software Engineering Institute never had rights to his inventions and to stop asserting it did.
Kellen Stepler is a TribLive reporter covering education in Allegheny County. He joined the Trib in April 2023. He can be reached at kstepler@triblive.com.
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