This is a serious criminal act. Perhaps you should report the person to his academic institution as well.

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Contact the journal asap with your proof. Not only is that plagiarism that is theft. It also clearly shows a lack of scrutiny on the part of the journal.

Laverne Davis: Thank you. We did that. We contacted both journals with our proofs of submissions (both first and R&R versions) - the work was stolen at the very first submission. It appeared that both journals are under one publisher and they acknowledged that the case is under investigation by their legal team.

Our worry is that the case appear to be delaying - since our initial complaint (December 5, 2018). And also the legal team hasn't contacted us for any questions or further evidence.

The more complex situation is that prior to our knowledge of the theft case, we submitted our manuscript to another journal for publication after it finally got rejected by the first journal's review process.

These cases are very serious indeed. The repercussions on a person's research career, standing in the community and ability to obtain references for future work in any field can be enormous and therefore it is imperative to be sure of the evidence and listen to the defence. I am sure that you would want to be absolutely certain that the theft was intentional before someone's life was ruined.

(Imagine for instance, the unlikely scenario in which a person is asked to review a paper, labels the document with a name like "Paper 1" and saves it for subsequent review. It is highly unlikely, but not completely impossible that the paper then got submitted in error to a journal and was accepted without any amendments at the review stage. How one could miss the error at the proof stage of publishing, I cannot imagine, although it could happen where a pdf is published, I suppose. The punishment dealt out should be appropriate for the crime, so one needs to know the facts.)

As far as the time taken is concerned, there are two journals involved, two journal editors, two legal tams at two different publishing houses and the researcher and his/her institute, and probably supervisors and another legal expert. All communications will pass by the legal teams for drafting, but be sent out from the journal editors. The two publishing houses will be allowing the researcher and his/her research institute time to investigate to make sure that there was no possible room for error. This procedure takes time because the staff all have other duties awaiting their attention (and the time taken for these other duties are how staff efficiency is assessed in publishing houses, as a result, your paper might not be of primary concern – it will be of concern, though!). The flow of correspondence is likely to be large and with the Christmas holiday in the middle of all this, the staff will be working to reduce the backlog as they return to work. I would expect that you might be looking at an eight week process, possibly longer. Why, I am not sure, but experience tells me that eight to ten weeks could be the time-frame.

Having said this, by all means write to both journals together to ask them both for an explanation of what is going on. I would suggest that you provide the dates on which you uploaded the paper to a repository, if you did, the date you submitted the paper to the journal, and the relevant dates for the publication of the paper copied from you.

Finally, and this is important: You might also include the third journal, the one to which you submitted your paper after rejection. You need to make sure that your publishing record remains clean for that journal and publishing house as well as the others. If you decide not to copy them in, I would be sure to write to them after the whole episode has been cleared up to make sure that no notes have been made on your file saying that you were plagiarising other people's work!

I wish you the best of luck with this.

Thank you very much for this information, Suzy Lidstrom.

You raise possible scenarios under which the accused person may have submitted the manuscript in error. But this is completely impossible under this very publishing house (hosting the 2 journals) and with this particular case. Below are my reasons:

1. In the submission process, corresponding authors are required to type in (or copy and paste) their titles (which in this case was modified by introducing a word), keywords, and abstract (also slightly modified). These are intended acts.

2. Now, what happened to the figures that were deleted from the stollen and published manuscript? Was that an unintended act?

3. Per the submission process of the publishing house, corresponding authors are to download and view proof of submissions (after completing the submission form and uploading the necessary attachments) before the system allows them to proceed to submit. The accused author can never skip this. So he definitely intended going through this process.

4. Finally, let's assume this work was submitted in error (which is not the case), the accuse author is required to sign copy right documents and to offer corrections to the final proof. I doubt the publishing house and the accused author will skip these steps.

These are all evidences to proof that the theft act was clearly an intented one and therefore criminal (deserving full punishment).

With respect to the time for processing this case, it's been 6 weeks already. And we haven't heard from the legal team (either with decision or for further questions). I'm not sure if the proofs of submission are the only evidence they require for the investigation. We have several other evidences to support our position [from the developmental stages of this paper to the 1st submission stage (where it was stolen) and even beyond].

Suzy, we will also discuss your recommendation to decide whether or not to include the third journal. Many thanks!

-Peter

You are welcome, Peter. I wanted to explain the procedure and that it takes time for the reasons given – there is a protocol followed by each publishing house to make sure that these cases are treated the same way and errors cannot occur. I would suggest that you write a brief note to all three journals asking for an update on the process and whether a decision has been made about the action to be taken, and explain that, amongst other things, the [review/publication] of your paper with Journal 3 is being held up unfairly. If all goes well, your paper, published under the other authors' names will be retracted, and you will see it published under your name.

I do hope that the matter is resolved quickly for you, but don't be surprised if is takes a few weeks longer.

I understand, Suzy. Thank you very much for your advice.

-Peter

Yay! After almost four months of officially reporting our plagiarized paper submitted for peer-review, we are happy to inform you that a decision has finally been made after investigation by the publisher. A decision has been taken to retract the stolen paper which was plagiarized and published by Karem Sayed Aboelazm of Cairo University (see his profile @ Karem Aboelazm

Find the full details of this case in the attached file. Thanks!!

Good to hear. But it will be surprising to note that the said article is still available online for download (as at today). I do not know what retraction means then.

Yes, Eric Gaisie. I also noticed that the plagiarized paper is still available online and even without any note, as at today. I'll appreciate your counsel. Thanks.

Yes, Eric Gaisie. I also noticed that the plagiarized paper is still available online and even without any note, as at today. I'll appreciate your counsel. Thanks.

I wish to inform you all that the retraction has finally taken effect. Please, see attached for your information. Thank you.

-Peter

I am glad to hear that this has been resolved for you, Peter!

Good for you Peter! I hope none of us gets the same experience.

Thank you for your well-wishes, Mirna Leko-Simic and Suzy Lidstrom.

Thanks, Prof. Nirmala. S.V.S.G. We have all succeeded because this is justice for us all.