Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[Watts Watt]

Good read, Games.

What interests me most is that Materion was the lead on this, and that being deduced from the fact that Materion is the assignor which assigned the patent to Apple as assignee.

So, the flow is from Materion to Apple, who, obviously, can afford to buy patents, whereas, LQMT cannot.

Nonetheless, I would expect this patent to be subsequently assigned to CIP, though, it is certainly within the purview of Apple to confine it for its own interests. If it is not further assigned to CIP, it would indicate to me that Materion's own research on formulations led by Edgar Vidal will be paid for by the users of the technology, and Materion certainly wants to obtain its own royalties from the entity who will CERTAINLY commercialize this formulation and process technology and the present assignment assures Apple control of a key technology. Further, I believe that Materion believes that Apple will be the first to commercialize liquidmetal, in the CE market, before liquidmetal commercializes any new products (apart from Swatch)
in the NON-CE market. However, I should like Paul Hauck to prove me wrong, in a heart-beat.

What is most interesting to me about the patent is that there is much consideration now being given to the liquidus point (that temperature at which the alloy can begin to flow) which can be significantly lower than the melt point; the net advantage of processing at the liquidus rather than melt being a longer mold life which is critical to the commercialization of liquidmetal alloys.

Thanks for your input.