Posted: June 4, 2007

Harvard is licensing more than 50 patents to a nanotechnology start-up

(Nanowerk News) George M. Whitesides, a Harvard University chemist, is a renowned specialist in nanotechnology, a field built on the behavior of materials as small as one molecule thick. But there is nothing tiny about the patent portfolio that Harvard has amassed over the last 25 years based on work in his lab.
Today, Harvard and Nano-Terra Inc., a company co-founded by Professor Whitesides, plan to announce the exclusive licensing for more than 50 current and pending Harvard patents to Nano-Terra. The deal could transform the little-known Nano-Terra into one of nanotechnology’s most closely watched start-ups.
“It’s the largest patent portfolio I remember, and it may be our largest ever,” said Isaac T. Kohlberg, who has overseen the commercialization of Harvard’s patent portfolio since 2005. Nano-Terra, based in Cambridge, Mass., said that the patent filing and maintenance costs alone top $2 million.
Read the full story in The New York Times.
Source: New York Times