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NEC Demands License Fees For Carbon Nanotubes
apirkle writes "As reported in this article on EEtimes.com, NEC has claimed today that they own 'essential patents' on carbon nanotubes, and that all companies who make or sell nanotubes must purchase a license. NEC has a press release stating that they have already sold a license."
Ok guys... is there any way we can stop this nonsense? I mean like really?
What really bugs me about patents isn't the ``obvious inventions'' like ``internet auctions'' or ``method of combining two numbers in the way that the end result consists of the sum of the numbers''.
I really can't understand patents for engineering methods and devices that cannot be build at the time of patent's granting. IMO working prototype should be a part of patent application. Lack of working prototype means that you don't know how to build it, hence you shouldn't own the patent in the first place.
Otherwise what's to stop me from patenting ``cold fusion'' and sitting on those patents while bribing politicians to extend the patent expiration date ad infinitum and waiting for someone else to actually make it possible?
Robert
PS Mark my words: patents' expiration extension will be the next big thing like the copyrights extension is now. ``Meat and metal'' technologies didn't need it (they usually were obsolete long before patent's expiration), but software and business methods patents are a perfect target for such campaign.
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
I work in a nanotube lab. We don't use any of the methods developed at NEC. As you said, you don't know the details of this patent, so it seems reasonable. Well, allow me to enlighten you.
They did not invent a new material. They turned on their microscope and found it. Nanotubes are simply a stable phase of carbon. They went through the trouble of trying to grow them, but if they hadn't they still would have found them, because the microscope stage they were using comes covered in them. You can't have any form of amorphous carbon (i.e. coal) without having some nanotubes.
So, they can patent the use of ANY carbon nanotube, in ANY device?
There is a patent for nanotubes as wires, and one for using nanotubes as semiconductors. These are basic facts of physics, provable in a couple of pages of work, not the result of experimentation or laboratory prowess. Are companies allowed to patent "silicon is a semiconductor" or "copper is a conductor"?
Sure, these companies could patent a specific growth technique. In a few months, there will be a dozen papers on how to do it better. Some people can do this stuff better than they can. There are a lot of hard working, smart people in this field who don't want to work for the NECs or IBMs. Rather than compete, the large labs leverage bogus patents to use OUR inventions for free.
No one has a patent on diamond or even things like superfluid helium, to have a patent on a specific phase of an element is absurd!
Interesting post. We are beginning to see more of "Intellectual-Property-as-a-dynamic-system." The game is to put obstacle in your competitor's way to maintain an advantage for yourself. The Asian countries play the game differently from the Western countries, and it's worth reading a book like, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-Ning Chu to see the difference. IMO, companies and individuals should be compensated for their intellectual achievements and research, but there ought to be a penalty for applying for a frivolous patent. (Interestingly enough, in Japan it's customary for a company suing another company to post a bond that will compensate the defendant if the lawsuit doesn't prevail. It is sometime done in the US, but the argument against it is that it is an unfair obstacle for those seeking justice through the courts.) The US derives an enormous benefit from patents. Billions of dollars are entering the US through channels not tracked by the "Balance of trade" figures as a result of licensing agreements with other nations. Japan licensed millions of dollars worth of technology and improved on it, and is still paying enormous amounts of money in license fees. Remember penicillin? The knowledge was put in the public domain and languished for 40 years because no companies felt they could afford to tool up to produce it since they would never have any competitive advantage. If it wasn't for WWII, penicillin production might not have gotten started. I don't resent the ease with which a company can apply and file a patent, but I resent the hell out of the high costs of challenging or defending a patent. Mike
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
1. You can patent substance if it is new invented material (which does not occur naturaly, in plants or corrals, for example). The tiniest possible modification of the naturaly occuring substance can be patented, as long as you can prove that it does not occur naturaly and you can tell the differnece. (And fake up some argument why it is better than the original stuff)
2. You can patent process of manufacture of anything. This kind of patents is not easy to enforce because it is very easy to modify the patented procedure with a redundant (or insignificant)change and claim it is essential and non-obvious. And companies are not required to disclose their processes, so it is hard to prove they are using the patented method.
3. You can patent the application of the material - the end use. The question then is how obvious or non-obvious the application realy is and what kind of practical examples of the application patent has - proving feasibility of the idea.
I would expect the future litigation involving patents from the second and third category. They need a lot of money to hire big-ass lawyers for bullying other companies. But sometimes it is easier to pay few% on royalities than risking lawsuit. (Unsettled lawsuits, frivolous or not, can make investors nervous, and licencing in the technology looks like prudent investment)
I used to work for a small biotech company which claimed to have key patents for generation and using combinatorial libraries of small drug-like chemicals for pharma research. Everybody is now using the technology, and our company got nothing out of it except for a harrasment kind of "due dilligence" lawsuit from one of the minority investors, which did cost us few millions on lawyers.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it