A Slight Divergence – (Nanotechnology and) Patents

Whether you are an experienced IP professional, or someone just getting started in the field of IP and licensing, a necessary – and fun – part of the field is keeping up on emerging technologies that may be relevant to your area of expertise.  One area of basic technology that will be key to a wide variety of industries is nanotechnology. 

In simplest terms, nanotechnology is a group of emerging techniques and methods used to manipulate both organic and inorganic materials at the atomic level.  Through such techniques, nanotechnology promises to achieve AT LEAST two things:

1)      Changing the atomic structure of materials to solve existing shortcomings in materials, such as strength, elasticity and brittleness; and

2)      Building self-contained, atomic-scale “machines” that alone or in groups, can perform industrial, medical or communicative tasks.

By being able to alter the nature of basic materials at the molecular level, nanotechnology promises to fundamentally change a broad cross-section of industries.  Areas as diverse as medicine, energy, aviation, apparel and communications will be affected by nanotechnology.

Personally, I am interested in this field because of nanotechnology advances relevant to the telecommunications industry.  Within the telecom equipment space, I know of two current examples that show how diverse and wide-ranging the effect of nanotechnology may be on the industry:

1)      Nokia is currently experimenting with a nanotechnology called “Morph,” which makes the materials used in a cell phone fully flexible and stretchable. (More information on Morph can be found at http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/news/articles/20017508482.html.) It may seem a little silly at first, but a flexible cell phone material could provide enormous benefits in terms of user experience (you could put the phone easily in the back pocket of your pants), as well lowering the cost of manufacturing and shipping, which are key cost points in the mobile phone industry.

2)      No less amazing, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (my alma mater – GO BEARS!)  have used nanotechnology to actually synthesize an atomic-sized functioning radio receiver.  Its first two signals received were the songs “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos, and “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys.  Again, it may seem a little silly, until one realizes that an atomic radio could be used to make cell phones (much) smaller; to create very small radio “tags” for product or document tracking; or even to be used within the human body to track the effects of medicine on patients. (See http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=emerging08&id=20244&a=)

The above are just “nano” examples of the potential found in the field of nanotechnology.  If you are interested in learning more about the field, check out the Topix Nanotechology news feed at http://www.topix.com/tech/nanotech. And yes – there are IP and licensing issues that are unique to nanotechnology.  We’ll discuss in greater depth in subsequent posts.