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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."
..the SCO of the Science World.
"All your nanotubes are belong to us"
FP!
I'd be happy to give them a micropayment for their nanotubes.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Unfortunately money is everything when it comes to companies... It's all about shareholder value :(
"That will be $699 per micron of nanotube length. Pay up now. Make it snappy: we have an auto-parts company to sue tomorrow."
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. --
1. Dave Barry wrote an important piece concerning nanotube application (in layperson's terms , carbon nanotubes are nanotubes made of carbon)
... (while being employed))
..
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
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
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!
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.
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!"