Mar. 31, 2006 – Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. (NASDAQ: ALTI) announced that it has entered into a supply and distribution agreement with Sulzer Metco, a designer, manufacturer and supplier of thermal spray materials, equipment and integrated system solutions for the industrial market. Sulzer Metco is the second largest division of Sulzer, a publicly traded Swiss company.

Under the agreement, Altairnano and Sulzer Metco have agreed upon a framework to supply and sell nano-structured titanium dioxide and nanostructured yttria stabilized zirconium oxide.

The parties will determine which Altair nanostructured powders will be manufactured and licensed for thermal spray applications and develop a five-year marketing and distribution plan outlining projected purchase quantities, pricing, and marketing plans for the product.

Once an Altairnano nano-structured powder is designated to be supplied under the agreement, Sulzer Metco has the right to be the exclusive distributor of that product in the spray coating field assuming that certain purchase and other commitments are met.

Mar. 30, 2006 – Ensemble Discovery Corp. announced the appointment of Laurence Reid as chief business officer. Reid will lead strategic business planning and corporate development activities for the company and is expected to work closely with the other members of Ensemble’s executive team to align business strategies and research and development efforts.

Reid’s experience includes general management, strategic planning, commercial development and business development. Most recently, he was chief executive officer of a seed stage venture focused on inflammation and pain. Prior to that, he spent more than 10 years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

Mar. 30, 2006 – When an invention appears potentially patentable, the inventor should consult with a patent attorney without delay. Often, the patent attorney will advise that a patent application be prepared and filed promptly before the invention is publicized, used in public, or offered for sale. If such advice is not sought or followed, some patents issued in the United States may be susceptible to being invalidated later on for one of several possible reasons. Inventors of emerging technologies such as microsystems and nanotechnology are vulnerable to that scenario.

For example, if it is determined that an invention was in “public use” or “on sale” (e.g., sold or offered for sale) in the United States more than one year prior to the date an application for a patent was filed, then a patent issued from that application may be invalidated under the “in-use bar” or the “on-sale bar” of U.S. patent law. In these circumstances, an inventor may overcome an assertion of invalidity of the patent by showing that the public use or the sale/offer for sale of the patented device was “primarily an experimental use.”

Experimental use may take place when an inventor feels that it is desirable to test the invention under actual operating conditions or in an environment where the invention is likely to be used. In such cases, there is a risk of a future challenge to the validity of a later issued patent for the invention. However, the risk may be minimized by following at least some of the 12 guidelines listed after the summary of the recent court opinion below.

A judgment of invalidity of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,169,242 and 5,567,056 under the on-sale bar was affirmed in Electromotive Division of General Motors Corp. v. Transportation Systems Division of General Electric Co. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that the inventions claimed in the patents were the subject of commercial sales to several railroad customers more than one year prior to the dates of application for the two patents. The question was whether the circumstances surrounding each of those sales objectively showed that the sales were “primarily made for experimentation.”

In concluding that there was insufficient objective evidence to prove that the sales were primarily for experimentation, the court referred to a list of 13 objective factors in an earlier case, Allen Engineering Corp. v. Bartell Industries. After noting that the list is not exhaustive and that all factors may not apply in a particular case, the court held that two factors are “critical” and must be proven if experimentation is to be found — the inventor’s control over the alleged testing, and a customer’s awareness of the purported testing. Since the patent owner did not produce adequate evidence of either of these critical factors, both of its patents were held invalid. (If both critical factors had been shown, the court would have considered the rest of the 13 factors listed in Allen Engineering.)

In reaching this decision, the court discussed the types of evidence needed to prove that a pre-critical date sale (i.e., a sale/offer for sale more than one year before the patent application was filed) was “primarily made for experimentation.” The list of 12 guidelines below is based on the court’s discussion of what the inventors and patent owner did not do. Doing at least some of the following actions should establish the inventor’s control and customer awareness of the inventor’s testing:

1. Document the fact that the invention is being provided to the customer for the purpose of testing the invention in actual use rather than as part of a commercial sale.

2. Have the customer sign a confidentiality agreement or other agreement consenting to participate in a field program.

3. Provide protocols to the customer directing their use of the invention.

4. Supervise or restrict the customer’s use of the invention.

5. Require the customer to operate the invention under specific conditions.

6. Monitor the conditions under which the customer uses the invention.

7. Require the customer to provide feedback, such as comments or data concerning the operation or durability of the invention.

8. Have the inventor, or someone under his direction (e.g., the customer), collect data, keep progress reports, and operate the invention during specified times.

9. Maintain records of the testing or require the customer to do so.

10. Control, monitor, or systematize the field testing of the invention.

11. Examine the invention being tested in the field on a schedule.

12. Consider discounting the price of the invention sold for the purpose of experimentation.

Mar. 28, 2006 – Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO), a supplier of instrumentation to the research and nanoscience community, announced the launch of two new scanning probe microscope (SPM) products, the MultiMode V SPM and the Dimension V SPM for both research and industrial applications.

Both products feature Veeco’s next generation controller, the Nanoscope V, which is intended to allow researchers to see faster molecular scale events and capture more information in an image.

In addition, Veeco’s new Easy-AFM software offers a graphic interface for new or infrequent SPM users. The company expects greater simplicity will lead to broader adoption of the tools.

The MultiMode V is designed to enable measurements of small samples, such as polymers and electrochemical materials, while the Dimension V is primarily used for larger samples such as semiconductor wafers, data storage films and electrical characterization applications.

Both products feature high-speed data capture (50MHz), increased thermal tune capabilities and high pixel density images which allow observation of large structures and small features in the same image. The Nanoscope V controller captures up to eight images simultaneously.

Mar. 27, 2006 – A small band of researchers scattered around the country from East Tennessee State University to Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital are about to test a new, nanotech approach to heading off a potential bird flu pandemic.

The scientists are developing liposomes, fatty globules used as a tiny drug delivery device, which contain a mix of antioxidants and anti-viral drugs. The researchers believe that these liposomes, which can be reduced to a size as small as 25 to 50 nanometers, can cripple the lethal chain reaction that allows a virus to replicate, saving the patient.

By delivering a mix of a typical anti-viral agent along with antioxidants, “you are able to decrease the viral replication … of the cell,” says Milton Smith, president of Amaox.

Amaox dates back to 1992, when a group of researchers set out to study the therapeutic role of liposomes. Now, the National Institutes of Health is funding an upcoming trial of the experimental bird flu therapy at the University of Utah to determine if it should go on to animal and later human trials. Much of the team’s work to date has been sponsored by the Department of Defense, which has been interested in using therapeutic liposomes to guard against mustard gas and more recently anthrax.

“When we think of antioxidants, we think of taking them by mouth,” says Smith. “People think of them as vitamins.” But when you use liposomes as tiny delivery vehicles, then therapies can be delivered through a topical application, as an injection or inhaled when aerosolized. And by changing the way the therapy is delivered, researchers say they can increase the absorption level of the therapy and change the therapeutic quality of the drug. Taking antioxidants orally, or through the gut, limits their absorption level.

“We know that the viral infection of the lung in general produces inflammation,” says Bill Stone of the James H. Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City, Tenn. Stone initiated much of the work that is about to be tested. “It’s always accompanied by oxidative stress. We know that these viruses use oxidative stress to aid in replication. The oxidative stress component becomes so large as to cause pathology. And we think that’s what is going on with bird flu. SARS would be a similar kind of scenario.”

Stone’s theory is that you can provide water and lipid soluble antioxidants directly into the lung through an aerosolized therapy. Those antioxidants, particularly glutathione and vitamin E, block the ability of the virus to enter the cells.

If they’re right, it could provide a generic approach to combating bird flu, rather than the hit-or-miss strategy involved when trying to develop a vaccine for the kind of moving target a swiftly mutating virus can become.

“When you make a vaccine,” says Stone, “you have to inject an antigen for a specific strain. If you miss the strain, then you’re done for.”

The researchers believe that by targeting the body’s inflammatory response to a viral infection, they can deliver a therapy that would have broad application against all strains of the H5N1 strain that has been raising fears and sparking headlines around the world.

Smith emphasizes that a virtual network of scientists has been working to advance the project. Those scientists also include Ken Alibek, formerly a scientist with the Soviet biological weapons program, Keith Crawford at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Peter Ward at the University of Michigan.

Liposomes are rarely used in medicine, but are not unheard of. Researchers trying to modulate the side effects of the powerful breast cancer chemotherapy Adriamycin made a new variety of it called Doxil that is carried by liposomes. The newly constituted drug is absorbed more slowly, maintaining its effectiveness against the cancer while, hopefully, blunting adverse effects. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Copernicus Therapeutics have also developed liposomes 25 nanometers across that carry therapeutic DNA, small enough to pass through nuclear pores in order to treat cystic fibrosis.

Once you become accomplished at working with liposomes, says Stone, it actually can go quite smoothly.

“It’s like playing the piano,” says Stone. “It looks easy when you’ve seen it done right.”

In a perfect world, says Smith, it would be possible to get results from the first in vitro — or test tube — trial in a matter of weeks. With more backing from the NIH, that would allow researchers to tackle animal studies in a matter of months. And in the event of an actual bird flu pandemic, the normal rules of drug development — which often requires years of careful safety and efficacy studies — could be suspended. Theoretically, says Smith, a therapy could be approved in less than two years.

“If bird flu becomes a true pandemic,” says Smith. “Lots of things change. If you have thousands of people dying, I don’t think the FDA is going to go thru the usual due processes.”