NEC Demands License Fees For Carbon Nanotubes 103
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."
NEC (Score:5, Funny)
"All your nanotubes are belong to us"
FP!
Whatter-ene? (Score:2)
Oh wait, he had a few patents of his own, didn't he... Of course, he didn't go around trying to extort "licensing fees" from people using his ideas, either.
Re:Whatter-ene? (Score:2, Interesting)
A right not exercised or defended is worthless.
Mike
Re:NEC (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:NEC (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:NEC (Score:2)
A bit worried here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A bit worried here... (Score:1, Funny)
Re: Stop the Insanity (Score:2, Funny)
Greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry for the disjointed rant, but this is a very annoying announcement.
Re:Greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Greedy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Greedy (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Greedy (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ever
Re:Greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Greedy (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.
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
Re:Greedy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
My girlfriend just said that she sees a carbon-based nanotube all the time, but for the life of me I've got no idea what she's talking about; she doesn't work in a physics lab or anything.
Oh, wait...
Re:Greedy (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
If people are including nanotubes in their products because of work these guy did, then let them enforce their patent. If you came up with a better stainless steel, wouldn't you want to patent the method so the big companies couldn'
Re:Greedy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
And that gets right to the point about why large companies agressively patent everything. If NEC were to even vaguely ponder licensing those patents to IBM, IBM would merely barter its 89 bazillion materials science patents-- 32 gagillion of which NEC and everyone else is infringing by breathing. NEC and IBM am
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
They are the only material we know of that could be used to build a space elevator.
Re:Greedy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Greedy (Score:2)
My God! How do you fit in there?!
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
getting the picture?
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
check my facts? present yours first.
Re:Greedy (Score:1, Interesting)
A good question is did their patents seem obvious before they were filed? I don't know, I'm not familiar with the field. But if all Nanotube research is based on their work, they should be paid. Money ain't nothing either.
Re:Greedy (Score:1)
They should take the high road (Score:1, Informative)
Re:They should take the high road (Score:1)
Shoelaces (Score:2)
And no, I'm not trying to make the parent poster sound stupid by being sarcastic - I actually think that nanotube shoelaces would be a good idea. They would never wear out, and be kind of cool in a high-tech geeky kind of way. And people don't mind paying stupid money for clothes, so I think the market's there.
And given that shoelaces are pretty short compared to, say, a space elevator, I'd say that this is one of the sooner
Re:Shoelaces (Score:2)
Nanotubes are much stronger than steel, so won't they
slice through the grommets; and the polyurethane uppers
of your shoes; and the meat and bones of your feet?
[ Dr. Wierd ]
"Gentlemen! Behold! My new
>;K
Micropayment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Micropayment (Score:5, Funny)
You overpaid.
Re:Micropayment (Score:2)
Just remember kids, if you outlaw unlicenced nantubes, then only outlaws will have unlicenced nanotubes. Then how will Batman be able to maintain his gadgetorial supremecy against the evil minds of the world?
I got it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I got it... (Score:1)
That is the best thing i have read in a while!!! Cheers
Obligatory SCO joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory SCO joke (Score:2, Funny)
"Failure to comply with this notice will result in you being litigated into obvlivion by our legal team.
All your base,
The SCO Group."
tricky (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:tricky (Score:2)
I'd like a patent on arsenic so I could sue RIAA for all that pop music they produce.
Re:tricky (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:tricky (Score:3, Informative)
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 dru
hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Now for the law suites... You will all be receiving a letter from my lawyer shortly
Re:hmm... (Score:1)
Re:hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
what are those? are they like the offices that lawyers work in?
The process or the tubes themselves? (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
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).
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
They may have a point (Score:5, Informative)
What really bugs me about patents... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:What really bugs me about patents... (Score:1, Insightful)
Well it makes sense actually. Say you designed a new type of engine: you do the modelling and the theoretical analysis. Turns out it's got great potential. But BUT before investing any money in buildi
Re:What really bugs me about patents... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if a system like this is feasible.
I'm not going to worry until... (Score:3, Funny)
Candlelight vigils no longer free (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Anyone want a ride on (Score:1)
Materials patents? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Materials patents? (Score:3, Informative)
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
references (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [iht.com] , 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
Re:references (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp
None of the lawsuits in that story have any truth to them.
Re:references (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:references (Score:2)
Re:references (Score:3, Insightful)
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 da
Re:references (Score:2)
Re:references (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:references (Score:2)
Re:references (Score:2)
Re:references (Score:1)
putting a limit on this amount might help counter the waves of BS-lawsuits (for lack of a better name.) (though i realize this is unlikely)
another point that counter such suits (and can be carried out by the courts quite easily) is to charge the plantiff with both sides' legal fees in case his suit was deemed by the court unjust , and declared to be one without basis.
Thi
Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
NEC does not have US patent on nanotubes (Score:5, Informative)
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 [uspto.gov].
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.
South Park (Score:2)
Nanotubes have nothing to do with ladders to heaven do they?
Re:South Park (Score:2)
Re:South Park (Score:2)
No, just elevators to space.
Time to patent that Oxygen Molecule I guess (Score:1)
Re:Time to patent that Oxygen Molecule I guess (Score:1, Insightful)
these days, everyones confused though and getting more so.
Space Elevator? (Score:1)
*look i sold a license* (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:*look i sold a license* (Score:2)
Here are the USPTO patents on carbon nanotubes (Score:3, Informative)
prior art (Score:2)
Avoid burning stuff? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wondering. I'd hate to violate the sanctity of this most worthy collection of patents...