Don't panic, take a look at the real situation:
IMHO people are very seriously over-reacting here before all the facts are in.
Note that Dr Kaplan did NOT say that he was never on the science advisory board of KBLB, just that he was not now.
I find it highly dubious that Kim would be so foolish as to release a PR announcing that Dr. Kaplan was on the board before getting his OK on it. IMHO the most likely scenairo is this:
(Note that Dr Kaplan did say that Kim asked him to be on the board so we know that they did talk to each other.)
Kim asked Dr Kaplan to be on the board and either 1)Dr Kaplan said something that led Kim to believe that he had accepted when he really was not quite decided or 2) Dr Kaplan agreeed.
So Kim put out the PR. Note that Dr Kaplan has done a huge amount of work on spider silk protein and undoubtedly is already involved with other companies wanting to develop products from them (if you know how universities work today that is absolutely inevitable). Maybe one or more of those companies saw that PR and decided that allowing Dr Kaplan to be on KBLB's Science Advisory Board would seriously conflict with their interests (because they considered KBLB to be a competitor) and complained to him about that and Dr Kaplan decided that his already established relationship with them was more important than what he could gain from KBLB so he decided not to after all.
That would fit the observation that KBLB initially put Dr. Kaplan on their webpage as a scientific advisor but then quickly took him off again.
This kind of thing happens in business. If that's what happened I would fault Kim for not making an announcement that Dr. Kaplan had decided not to join the board but I would hardly call it fraud.
The key point here, IMHO, is to not panic but wait to find out what really happened.
Considering KBLB's potential for a very dominant position in the spider silk products industry I think the most likely explanation is that a company that Dr. Kaplan's already had established business relationships with (quite possibly a potential producer of a spider silk protein product that Dr. Kaplan has IP on) decided that him being on KBLB's board was not acceptable to him. In such a situation there's little doubt that Dr Kaplan would choose to back off of being on KBLB's board.
I noticed that Dr. Kaplan was not on the board quite awhile ago but because of the above possibility/probability decided to not go into it even further. If KBLB gets a particular need for his expertise they probably hire him as a temporary consultant for work on a specific issue or, if relevant, license IP they may need from him or one of the companies he's working with. This is business and that sort of thing is done all the time.
It might be that Kim changed his mind and decided not to have Dr Kaplan on the board after all because of a possible conflict between something Dr Kaplan had IP on and KBLB wanted to remain free to develop. IN IN
Also consider the backgrounds and history of the various posters making a big deal of this. In such a case Kim would certainly not want to make a big deal about not keeping Dr. Kaplan on the board for both their sakes.
Don't panic, don't make rash accusations, just get the facts.
AI
