Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[PatentGuy1]

With regard to within the EU, can LQMT use the EU patent in the EU? Possibly or possibly not. The EU patent claims priority back to a Chinese patent filed in 2013. The Chinese patent was not included in the list of Eontec patents. The EU patent was filed in the EU on July 31, 2014, which precedes the PLA, and it was not listed in the Eontec licensed patents.

The PLA states:

“Eontec Licensed Patents” shall mean any and all Patents of Eontec or any Affiliate of Eontec in existence as of the Effective Date, including without limitation those listed in Appendix B, and those Patents of Eontec or any Affiliate thereof for any invention that is first created, conceived, or reduced to practice during the period beginning on the Effective Date and ending of the last day of the Joint Development Period.

(See PLA, section 1.8, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1141240/000143774916027548/ex10-2.htm)
Clearly, the EU patent does not qualify as having been "first created, conceived, or reduced to practice during ...the Joint Development Period", because it was filed years before the PLA went into effect.

With regard to the patent being omitted from the list in Appendix B, an argument can be made that the Parties deliberately omitted it (because, for example, it wasn't germane to bulk metallic glass technology) or that it falls into the "without limitation" clause. So, possibly or possibly not, a court would have to decide.

One thing is absolutely clear though, LQMT and everyone else in the whole world may use it in the U.S. The corresponding U.S. patent application was published as U.S. Patent Publication No. 20160235456, application no. 15/095148. This application was abandoned, i.e., it did not issue as a patent. Therefore, EVERYONE may use the subject matter of the patent in the U.S.