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NEC Demands License Fees For Carbon Nanotubes

Posted by timothy on from the candlestick-makers-watch-out dept.

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."

46 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. NEC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..the SCO of the Science World.

    "All your nanotubes are belong to us"

    FP!

    1. Re:NEC by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 4, Insightful
      ..the SCO of the Science World.
      Actually this is a situation where patents may be doing what they're supposed to -- providing financial incentive for researchers. If NEC has, indeed, put in the research dollars to develop carbon nanotubes, they should reap the benefits of the use of their research.
    2. Re:NEC by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Um.. How is the parent post flamebait? It would seem to be the conventional view that that patents are precicely for the purpose of rewarding those who have put in research dollars.

      Here's a question: If someone has a patent on nanotubes, but someone would like to research an improvement to nanotubes that would involve creating something similar enough to nanotubes that it infringes on a NEC patent, would that person need to purchase a NEC license to do research? For example suppose NEC has a patent on Nanotubes, but they can only make them in gram quantities, but I research and patent a method for making them by the ton out of horse manure, then can NEC sue me for making all those nanotubes during my research phase without permission?

      --

      Eat at Joe's.

  2. A bit worried here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok guys... is there any way we can stop this nonsense? I mean like really?

  3. Greedy by addie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Greedy, greedy, greedy. Take some responsibility, take a hit for the future, realize that you're part of the world too. Carbon nanotubes have the potential to be everywhere, from space elevators to shoe laces to medical devices. NEC should step back and work on a plan that would allow their technology to be used by other companies, but the credit can still go to NEC. Money ain't everything.

    Sorry for the disjointed rant, but this is a very annoying announcement.

    1. Re:Greedy by tolan-b · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately money is everything when it comes to companies... It's all about shareholder value :(

    2. Re:Greedy by Zardoz44 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      They are working on a plan to allow other companies to use their technology. This is what the patent is. I agree that many modern patents are crap, but since I can't read this one, I'm going to give their press-release the benefit of the doubt.

      This company spent loads of research money and invented a new material. They published their results and patented the procedure. Now, for a limited period, they get to make their money back by selling the right to use it.

      It's easy for you to say "money ain't everything" when you didn't invest millions into an invention that others want to use for free.

    3. Re:Greedy by addie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I do understand what they're trying to do. My problem is with the fact that there have been researchers the world over working on carbon nano-tubes for years, using different methods and achieving different results.

      I suppose the patent process will distinguish what is what, but is a carbon nanotube a carbon nanotube, no matter what process was used to produce it? What I'm saying is, does the patent apply to the end result or the process itself?

      I just don't want to see such a valuable invention huddled away in a proprietary corner.

    4. Re:Greedy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My problem is with the fact that there have been researchers the world over working on carbon nano-tubes for years, using different methods and achieving different results.

      The question is: would they have done so if their employers didn't think they were going to get a return on their investment?

      The question becomes even more relevent when the research is so expensive garage inventors can't do it.

    5. Re:Greedy by Zardoz44 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Essentially we agree. This could be valid, but it depends on what the patent is actually on. The process or the tubes? I'm assuming the process, but we've seen some bad patents before.

    6. Re:Greedy by Goldsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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!

    7. Re:Greedy by meburke · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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!"
    8. Re:Greedy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I am working in a nanotube lab, too. There are lots of patents out there, describing specific methods of nanotube production. The oldest nanotube patent so far goes back to 1985. It was a US patent of a company sitting in Massachusetts. No joke, this is 6 years before the "invention" of nanotubes by NEC. They simply called it carbon nanofibrils but not carbon nanotubes. But essentially, it is the same material. So, even if it might be possible to patent nanotubes as such (maybe in Japan only) their patent is at least questionable. CNI is another company which owns nanotube synthesis patents and do not need to rely on those patents by NEC.

    9. Re:Greedy by Yanray · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You must not be a shareholder.. Other wise your post would look like: Fortunately money is everything when it comes to companies... It's all about shareholder value :)

      --
      --"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
      DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
    10. Re:Greedy by APL+bigot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unfortunately money is everything when it comes to companies... It's all about shareholder value:(

      No. NOW it's all about CEO greed. It wasn't always this way.
      Good thing AT&T didn't collect royalties on the transistor patent.

      --
      Heisenberg may have been here.
  4. Micropayment by AtariAmarok · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd be happy to give them a micropayment for their nanotubes.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
    1. Re:Micropayment by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Funny

      happy to give them a micropayment for their nanotubes.

      You overpaid.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  5. I got it... by hookedup · · Score: 4, Funny

    New corporate motto "holding up progress, one patent at a time"

  6. Obligatory SCO joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "That will be $699 per micron of nanotube length. Pay up now. Make it snappy: we have an auto-parts company to sue tomorrow."

    1. Re:Obligatory SCO joke by pragma_x · · Score: 2, Funny

      You forgot:

      "Failure to comply with this notice will result in you being litigated into obvlivion by our legal team.

      All your base,
      The SCO Group."

  7. tricky by ajagci · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it used to be the case that (for the most part) you couldn't claim a patent on a substance, only on its manufacture and its applications. That seems pretty sensible to me.

    Sadly, that principle seems to have eroded away, and there are many patents on substances now that cover all future applications and ways of manufacturing them. Seems to me like that runs against the purpose of the patent system: to encourage useful innovation. I mean, if you can just claim all possible ways of manufacturing a substance and all possible ways of using it by just describing the substance, why would anybody else want to invest in finding better ways of manufacturing it or new applications for it?

    In any case, this particular patent should run out in less than a decade, so it probably won't be all that significant.

    1. Re:tricky by Muhammar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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
    2. Re:tricky by ajagci · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can patent substance if it is new invented material

      As I was saying: you can now. You didn't use to be able to. Patents used to be on processes, methods, or applications, not on substances.

      The reason for the change was exactly (2): manufacturers were crying "foul". But the cure is apparently worse than the disease, since the new rules clearly stifle innovation.

      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

      That sounds reasonable to me. The idea itself is very old and nobody within the last three decades should have been able to get "key" patents in that area. At best, a company might have gotten a patent on a specific, useful tweak. Your management and your investors should have known, too. Maybe the patent system does work sometimes...

  8. hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have a patent on a device that intakes mostly oxygen and the discharges carbon dioxide. It also has the ability to intake organic matter and discharges non used waste matter...

    Now for the law suites... You will all be receiving a letter from my lawyer shortly

    1. Re:hmm... by Daktaklakpak · · Score: 2, Funny

      Now for the law suites...
      what are those? are they like the offices that lawyers work in?

  9. The process or the tubes themselves? by jabberjaw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I did not seem to find the articles that clear, are they claiming to patent a specific process for making carbon nanotubes or are they caliming to patent the nanotubes themselves, regardless of the process used to generate them? The former does not bother me, however the latter is rather troubling.

  10. In other news... by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 3, Funny

    DeBeers, inspired by NEC's recent move, pattents the diamond latice crystal structure.

    They have announced they intend to sue all companies who profit from their crystal, starting with synthetic diamond makers who use their crystal shape in carbon, then moving on into the semiconductor industry (where their pattented crystal structure is widely used in silicon).

    --
    "The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
  11. They may have a point by tsa · · Score: 4, Informative

    If they patented the structures they show in the images on their website (I can't read Japanese so I'm not sure) then they may have a point (and the world may have a big problem). On the other hand, carbon nanotubes are things that are easily formed in nature (it's the purification process that's complicated, and of course the processes involved in making carbon nanotubes with specified properties). Therefore patenting carbon nanotubes is like patenting iron, or silicon oxide. And I'm not sure if such a patent will hold in court.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  12. What really bugs me about patents... by Gadzinka · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:What really bugs me about patents... by TwistedGreen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Then perhaps two types of patents should be issued: a temporary prototype-level patent, which would only last for the few years necessary to develop a working protoype; and a long-term patent which would operate as standard patents do now, only the patent-holder is now guaranteed to not just be 'sitting on the patent.'

      I wonder if a system like this is feasible.

  13. I'm not going to worry until... by dbirchall · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...NEC alleges that IBM improperly copied carbon nanotubes into Linux. :)

  14. Candlelight vigils no longer free by Jtheletter · · Score: 5, Funny
    In other news today, a candlelight vigil for a young boy with terminal lung cancer was broken up by NEOCorp private police when participants refused to pay a licensing fee for the billions of carbon nanotubes they were blantantly producing by burning wax.
    When asked for comment a NEOCorp spokesman said, "It really is too bad about that kid dying or whatever, but we've got to focus on the real issue here, our IP was being flagrantly abused in public with no monetary compensation to us, and we are not going to sit idly by and allow the screaming naked masses to continue to profit from the light and heat given off as a byproduct of producing NEOCorp's patented molecules."
    When asked for comment on why NEOCorp felt it had the right to patent naturally occuring substances that it merely found rather than explicitly created, the original reporter was rapidly bludgeoned to near-death and taken to NEOCorp's multitrillion dollar headquarters (previously Japan) for immediate Company Re-Education.

    --
    -- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
  15. Materials patents? by El · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, can I patent gold, silver, and platinum, and start demanding fees from Jewelry and precious metal manufacturers? Don't carbon nanotubes ever occur in nature? Seems to me the rule was that they could patent their method for building them, but if you could figure out another way to do it, it was fair game. Now NEC is claiming it is impossible to make a carbon nanotube without infringing their methods? What, is everybody infringing on step 1: "First, take some carbon..."?!?

    --

    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    1. Re:Materials patents? by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Informative

      I ain't no patent laywer.... but...

      As I understand patents [which isn't saying much] you have to infringe on the patent as a whole not in part. Obviously there is wiggle room about the steps [e.g. change a 6ml of water to 6.0001ml won't make your process different enough].

      So all another company has todo is find a significantly different way to make the tubes and voila. Or just duke it out by the monkey bars after school with the NEC staff :-)

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  16. references by Avishalom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Dave Barry wrote an important piece concerning nanotube application (in layperson's terms , carbon nanotubes are nanotubes made of carbon)
    It also talks about those dummy close door elevator buttons (whose cousins, the crosswalk buttons were talked about a lot)

    2. the original title was Dave Barry: Lawyers needed, many, to test space elevator , i'll get to that in a second.


    OK let sum it up
    youv'e got

    a - a women suing her successfull son for slander (or ST) trying to get rich.
    b - a women pretrnding to fall over in a day after Xmas DVD sale to sue the company (didn't it turn out that it was the 16th time she sued them ... (while being employed))
    c - companies patenting facts, ideas , linux code.
    d- a women suing (and winning) a department store claiming she sprained her arm tripping over a toddler (her own child)
    e - a man suing his neighbor (and getting 5 figures) claiming the dog attacked him (which is true except that "he started it" by repeatedly shooting the dog with a BB gun)
    (i appologize for not citing the reference but you can google for outrageous lawsuits to see that i downtoned)
    These are syndromes of a society with too many lawyers, coupled with distorted get rich quick ideas


     ------ why don't all these people just meet up with wealthy nigerian businessmen/inheritors and split the $20,000,000,023.85 that just needs a resourceful individual like yourself ..

    --
    -- Avishalom is usually vish
    1. Re:references by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Informative

      Item d on your list is well-known as a completely fake urban legend. See this Snopes page:

      http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

      None of the lawsuits in that story have any truth to them.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:references by Avishalom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      sorry , i got carried away so is my (e) (same rebuttal) you are right

      --
      -- Avishalom is usually vish
    3. Re:references by RedWizzard · · Score: 2, Insightful
      These are syndromes of a society with too many lawyers, coupled with distorted get rich quick ideas
      No, these are the results of a system where the rewards of successfully suing someone outweigh the cost incurred by the victim (in terms of suffering or whatever the suit is about) to a large degree. The reason for that is that punitive damages are awarded to the plaintiff, along with the compensatory damages. But punitive damages are intended to punish the offender, not reward the victim. If punitive damages went into the general tax fund or were distributed to charities or some alternative other than giving them to the plantiff it would end the majority of frivolous lawsuits bought by individuals. IMO punitive damages should be distributed to the plaintiffs is in the case of class actions.
    4. Re:references by RedWizzard · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Then how does the victim of actual negligence or intent recover medical or material costs? You're right that there is a reward here for greedy behavior, but that reward (punitive damages) is intended to assist the victim through difficult consequences of the defendent's actions.
      No, punitive damages are intended to punish the offender. It is the other component, compensatory damages, that are intended to compensate the victim. A victim should never end up worse off, as far as it possible to make up for their loss with money. The problem with awarding them the punitive damages is that the punitive damages often need to be ridiculously high in order to impact the company so they are therefore out of proportion to the victim's loss. Of course it is right and just that the victim receives compensatory damages, but I see little justification for awarding them the punitive damages beyond "what else do we do with the money?".
  17. Hmmm... by Transcendent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On that note, I claim to hold the patent on dihydrogen monoxide. So all governments, companies, or any living organism must purchase a license from me before using my patented chemical compound. If you are found to be in violation of this, I will sue you for $1,000 per molecule found in your body.

    More seriously, could this "patent" be voided is nanotubes are found to occur in nature or as a biproduct from another chemical process?

    I would think that you couldn't patent nature or accidental biproducts... but this is kinda rediculous so I could be wrong.

    In another thought... who are these idiots who keep handing out rediculous patents? Shouldn't there be moderation?

  18. NEC does not have US patent on nanotubes by Rene_Daley · · Score: 5, Informative
    As far as I can tell, NEC does not have a patent in the US on nanotubes themselves. NEC does have 5 US patents involving nanotubes:
    1 6,331,690 Process for producing single-wall carbon nanotubes uniform in diameter and laser ablation apparatus used therein
    2 6,157,043 Solenoid comprising a compound nanotube and magnetic generating apparatus using the compound nanotube
    3 5,698,175 Process for purifying, uncapping and chemically modifying carbon nanotubes
    4 5,641,466 Method of purifying carbon nanotubes
    5 5,627,140 Enhanced flux pinning in superconductors by embedding carbon nanotubes with BSCCO materials

    None of these patents cover the existence of nanotubes -- but the patents do cover various methods of creating nanotubes. I found 118 US patents which mention carbon nanotubes in the abstract to the patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

    There are other patents which concern creation of carbon nanotubes which predate NEC's patents. For example: 5,482,601 Method and device for the production of carbon nanotubes.

    Accordingly, I doubt that NEC has a patent on carbon nanotubes themselves. Instead, it appears that NEC has some patents on methods for manufacturing carbon nanotubes. If these methods are more efficient than other methods, I do not have any problem with NEC selling licenses to use their processes.

  19. Re: Stop the Insanity by Genial+Generalist · · Score: 2, Funny

    Putting a Stop to NEC Nonsense: A) A boycott of all NEC products. B) A campaign to dump all NEC stock from pension funds. C) A mass movement for jury nullification of all acts of attorney-cide, that means open season on attorneys. Now some might say there are good attorneys who are trying to change the system from within, as there were some "good" Nazis.

  20. *look i sold a license* by MrLint · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am getting more and more dismayed by this practice of corporations saying that they have sold a license for a patent/copyright/trademark/whatever and use that as a PR gimmick to lend public credibility to the validity of their claim.

    Its seems to be the PR equivalent equivalent of 'if i say it enough time it must be true'

    Every time a company uses this tactic i become wary of it and i lose respect and good will for it.

  21. Here are the USPTO patents on carbon nanotubes by azav · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.firstgov.gov/fgsearch/index.jsp?dep=t&n r=20&de=detailed&mw0=carbon%20nanotubes&mt0=phrase &ms0=must&in0=domain&dom0=www.uspto.gov&db=www&rn= 1&parsed=true

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  22. Avoid burning stuff? by Tailhook · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will I need a license to build a campfire? I understand that burning stuff causes buckyballs and bits of nanotubes and whatnot to appear. Am I not, therefore, guilty of violating NEC's patents by "manufacturing" their product without a license?

    Just wondering. I'd hate to violate the sanctity of this most worthy collection of patents...

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  23. Re:Whatter-ene? by meburke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, RBM was a big supporter of the patent idea, and dang near everything he did is covered by TM, RM, Copyright or patent. He was very zealous of protecting his intellectual property, and the Buckminster Fuller Foundation has very rigid rules about using his ideas or patents. Much of today's rigidity comes from people ripping off his ideas and trying to profit from them without acknowledging the source or paying for the privilege.

    A right not exercised or defended is worthless.

    Mike

    --
    "The mind works quicker than you think!"