I need help to avoid any potential academic misconduct regarding ongoing research. It is a bit complex. Let me explain the situation. It is not related to my Ph.D. thesis.
I am an international Ph.D. student starting in February 2022. Before starting my Ph.D., I found a public dataset and conceptualized a research question. Then I did all the required analyses, achieved the results, and prepared a draft paper with only an introduction and material methods. Then it was time to come to start my Ph.D. So, I thought I would no longer have time to complete my paper.
So, I invited a person (from another University) to contribute to writing the paper. I accepted him as the first author and was the second author (with equal contribution to the first author). I also was the corresponding author. So, he wrote results and discussions and prepared the paper for submission.
We submitted the work to a journal. It was rejected, but we were encouraged to re-submit the paper to the same journal once we addressed all the requested revisions.
So, I re-do the analyses and sent the results to him to apply the revisions. Then, a conflict occurred between us, and now, he claims that since he has an intellectual property to the results of this research, I cannot publish the paper without his consent. However, as I mentioned earlier, I started the study, conceptualized the research question, and did all the analyses, and he just contributed to writing the paper.
So, I would like two questions to be answered. 1) Can I publish this paper without consent? and 2) Does he have intellectual property on my results? What if I want to re-write the paper and not use his writings?