Today’s San Jose Mercury News — the newspaper of Silicon Valley — features a guest editorial by Wirt Cook, IBM vice president and senior state executive, on the proposed Patent Reform Act, titled “Patent Reform Act best way to protect, foster innovation”: Berman’s bill will enable private-citizen-experts to help patent examiners research the novelty of… Continue reading Patent Reform Act to aid nanotechnology?
The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the U.S. gives patent rights for federally-funded research done in universities to the universities themselves, in effect. Many people regard this strategy as a succcess, and many countries around the world are copying it. But is this the best way to handle this publicly-funded intellectual property? After over 25… Continue reading Maximizing nanotechnology patent benefits
Small Times brings word of advances in making longer carbon nanotubes. The company involved, Nanocomp Technologies, reminds us why these materials are so intriguing: Individual nanotubes have extraordinary properties as they are: Strong – 100 times stronger than steel. Lightweight – 30 percent lighter than aluminum. Conductive – conduct electricity as efficiently as copper, and… Continue reading Looong and thin carbon tubes via nanotechnology
Michael Berger of the useful Nanowerk website has produced a clarification essay on the size of the nanotechnology market, helping to put the hype in perspective. Some excerpts: First of all, these market size forecasts are dealing with what is called evolutionary nanotechnology. The goal of evolutionary nanotechnology is to improve existing processes, materials and… Continue reading Realism on the size of nanotechnology market
Small Times reports on a meeting held in Oregon among a wide variety of nanotechnology-based business participants, at which many commercialization challenges were discussed. One was difficulties encountered with the U.S. Patent office: Start-ups expressed frustration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Long waits for patent award decisions make it difficult for them… Continue reading Nanotechnology patent problems blamed on unionization
The company mPHASE points out that battery technology advance has been dismal compared to computer chips. Now they’ve used nanotechnology to build a more environmentally-friendly, longer shelf-life battery, and made a two-minute movie, posted on YouTube, to tell us about it. If the link doesn’t work for you, go to YouTube and search for nanobattery… Continue reading Finally, nanotechnology makes a greener battery
The Harvard Business Review has named its top 20 Breakthrough Ideas for 2007, and home-based, atomically-precise manufacturing makes the list. Business in the Nanocosm, by UC Berkeley business prof Rashi Glazer, does a good job of conveying the future of home-based nanomanufacturing. Excerpts: Conventional manufacturing carves or distills a purpose-suited device from a mass of… Continue reading Nanotechnology: Just-in-time nanomanufacturing at home
Nanotechnology career advice is available from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education at CareerVoyages.gov. It’s a pretty good place to start for people who are entirely new to the field. Most of the link lists include useful sites. A couple of areas could use additional work. The Nanotechnology — Tools and Technology section lists… Continue reading U.S. government advice on nanotechnology careers
Nanowerk reports that the German branch of Friends of the Earth (BUND) is calling for Samsung to withdraw from the market its washing machine using silver nanoparticles: …BUND criticized that considerable amounts of silver could enter sewage plants and seriously trouble the biologic purification process of the waste water. In addition, silver nanoparticles were blaimed… Continue reading Common sense about Samsung silver nanotechnology
Regular readers of Nanodot know that we never give nanotechnology investment advice. We are not experts at nanotech investing and our own personal portfolios are dismal. That said, here’s some news from Nanotero (pdf): Nantero Announces Routine Use of Nanotubes in Production CMOS Fabs Carbon Nanotube Electronics Era Has Begun Woburn, MA. November 1, 2006;… Continue reading NOT nanotechnology investment advice
