Graphene Can Be Made With Table Sugar

Zothecula writes with this snippet from Gizmag: "There's no doubt that the discovery of graphene is one sweet breakthrough. The remarkable material offers everything from faster, cooler electronics and cheaper lithium-ion batteries to faster DNA sequencing and single-atom transistors. Researchers at Rice University have made graphene even sweeter by developing a way to make pristine sheets of the one-atom-thick form of carbon from plain table sugar and other carbon-based substances. In another plus, the one-step process takes place at temperatures low enough to make the wonder material easy to manufacture."

Comments

Who'll profit?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

The graphene story is an excellent case study for innovation policy

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Inequality_between_small_and_large_patent_holders#Small_patent_holders_have_a_weak_negotiating_position

Inventing graphene gets you nothing, but inventing applications for it will make you rich.

Really a prizes system seems to be worth trying as a replacement for the patent system in some fields. How many millions does the patent system cost our governments? What if there were multi-million dollar prizes up for grabs, and freedom to operate for everyone, instead of monopolies?

(Yeh, the lawyers won't help us lobby for this change...)

Re:Who'll profit?

[Sockatume]

Nobody invented graphene. It was discovered, rendering it basically unpatentable, so I'm not sure why not sure what that has to do with small patent holders. However with regards to your second point, inventing a clever way of creating it was worth the Nobel Prize.

Re:Who'll profit?

[rolfwind]

Against Intellectual Property by Boldrin and Leving is a good book:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/intellectual.htm

However, you say how much money Patents cost the Government? It costs them nothing (well something but it's recuperated in taxes, fees, and corporate income tax) -- the real cost is societal.

However, corps are still under the dream that China will play nice and all that, and they'll get into that huge market. The truth is, countries don't follow IP laws until it is in their interest to do so (America did the same in her early history) and that means when China is ready to follow IP laws, it's only because they'll be so invested and huge that they'll crush us in our own game.

Re:Who'll profit?

[Musically_ut]

Nobody invented graphene. It was discovered, rendering it basically unpatentable, so I'm not sure why not sure what that has to do with small patent holders. However with regards to your second point, inventing a clever way of creating it was worth the Nobel Prize.

I would not say that Grephene was not patentable. The Nobel prize winners were on the verge of doing it, but they did not as they said in their interview.

And it seems they did so with good reason.

first graphene production

[neanderlander]

On a side note, Andre Geim supposedly designed the first graphene production process like this: his students used scotch-tape to pull thin layers of graphite from a piece of paper with pencil drawings on it.

Re:first graphene production

[MrQuacker]

On a side note, scotch tape releases x-rays when you peel it: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/10/gallery_xray_tape?slide=1&slideView=7

'...and other carbon-based substances'

[RDW]

Soylent Graphene is people!

Re:From the article: "five-atom rings in fluorene"

[reverseengineer]

Fluorene is a hydrocarbon compound named for its fluorescence. Despite what the name suggests, it contains no fluorine.