I believe that some patents will expire as early as this year, allowing Dr. Johnson to proceed with some commercialization projects at Glassimetals. I guess the level of concern is a matter of opinion / conjecture. Hopefully LQMT will get on the scoreboard soon.
I believe the basic patent for the basic LQMT metal expired in August. BUT there are about 50 more patents that aren't ready to expire any time soon...AND, another 50 that are in for approval. The ones in for approval seemed to have increased during the last year. JPaige posted the 50 that are known....I'm not sure if anyone knows what's in for approval. That probably didn't clear anything up and I'll probably have someone post that I'm "full of beans" but that's what my memory is telling me. And sorry to see we went a considerable distance below 10, into 9.
Patent expiration dates: there are no simple answers.
rdfdr1 - your question is a good one but is not easily answered (in spite of the assertion that the topic has been covered here before).
LQMT owns ~ 50 patents and has ~ another 50 that have been filed but not yet issued. Dates of issue run from about 1993 through at 2012. If you go to this link and scroll down about 25% of the way, you will come to a section titled: SCHEDULE 1 TO AGREEMENT - Patents and Patent Applications. It list all of the patents, domestic and foreign, that LQMT held at the time the Master Agreement between Apple and LQMT was written. It lists the patents and the dates they were filed and issued. Since then, several additional patents have been filed by LQMT and/or Apple and/or Crucible (the company formed jointly by Apple and LQMT).
I am no patent lawyer so I do not know the specifics of when the patents expire. As a general rule of thumb some patents are good for only 20 years... others for considerably longer. Some patents qualify for extensions (I believe) and some may not. I don't know which patents may be close to their expiration date or if those that are close to that date have been amended with applications for extension.
Bottom line: I would not be too concerned about patent expiration dates because Apple certainly would not have been willing to purchase patents that were soon to expire and which they could access without any cost to them at all. There was a darned good reason Apple shelled out $10-$12 million for those patents. If Apple isn't worried about the expiration dates, who are we to worry?
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