Royalty Report: Machinery, Printing & Publishing, Material Composite – Collection: 26380

License Grant

The Company entered into an agreement under which granted an exclusive license to the worldwide rights to develop, manufacture, market and sell products utilizing technology and processes patented in the metal casting field of use. Patents and trademark regarding Three dimensional printing techniques and related ancillary products.

License Property

Patents relate to 'Three Dimensional Printing Techniques (3DP)', 'Ceramic Mold Finishing', 'High Speed, High Quality Three Dimensional Printing', 'Powder Dispensing Techniques for Successive Layered Fabrication of an Object, 'Binder Composition for Use in Three-Dimensional Printing'.

This technology is embodied in the Company's DSPC 300 System (the 'DSPC System'), which produces ceramic casting molds directly from Computer Aided Design ('CAD') files.  These ceramic molds are used to cast metal parts that conform to the CAD design.  This unique capability distinguishes the DSPC System from rapid prototyping technologies that are characterized by the ability to produce non-functional, three-dimensional representations of parts from CAD files.

U.S. Patent No. 5,204,055, Issued on April 20, 1993
U.S. Patent No. 5,340,656, Issued on August 23, 1994 'Three Dimensional Printing Techniques (3DP)'
U.S. Patent No. 5,387,380, Issued on February 7, 1995 'Three-Dimensional Printing Techniques'
U.S. Patent No. 5,490,882, Issued on February 13, 1996 U.S. Serial No. 600,215, Filed February 12, 1996 'Ceramic Mold Finishing'
U.S. Serial No. 596,707, Filed February 5, 1996 (FWC of U.S. Serial No. 619,470, Filed February 18, 1993) 'High Speed, High Quality Three Dimensional Printing'
U.S. Serial No. 422,384, Filed April 14, 1995 'Powder Dispensing Techniques for Successive Layered Fabrication of an Object'
U.S. Serial No. 581,319, Filed December 29, 1995 'Binder Composition for Use in Three-Dimensional Printing'

License Grant

The Licensor grants the Licensee and its Affiliates for the Term a royalty-bearing license under the Patent rights to develop, make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, lease, and import Licensed Products in the Exclusive Field and Non-Exclusive field in the Territory and to develop and perform Licensed Processes in the Exclusive and Non-Exclusive Field in the Territory.
Licensee may sublicense the rights in the Exclusive Field for the Exclusive period.

License Property

3D printing or additive manufacturing, is any of various processes used to make a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source.

US Patent 5204055 Three-dimensional printing techniques
US Patent 5340656 Three-dimensional printing techniques
US Patent 5387380 Three-dimensional printing techniques

United States of America Patent No. 5490882 – “A Novel Face Coating Technique For Bodies With Large And Wide Pore Size Distributions”
United States of America Patent No. 6070973 – “Continuous Jet Droplet Generator'
United States of America Patent No. 6508980 – “Reactive Binders For Metal Parts Produced By Three Dimensional Printing”
United States of America Patent No. 6719948 – “Infiltration Of A Net Shape Powder Metal Skeleton By A Similar Alloy With Melting Point Depressed To Create A Homogenous Final Part”
United States of America Patent No. 7250134 – “Transient Liquid Phase Infiltration of Steel”

Field of Use

Exclusive Field shall mean the direct printing of metal parts and/or ceramic-metal parts which are not included in Excluded Fields. Exclusive field includes the manufacture and sale of Machines to be used for direct printing of metal parts and/or ceramic-metal (greater than 10%-by-volume metal) parts which are not included in Excluded Fields.

The Licensee is a manufacturing technology company, provides 3D printing machines, 3D printed products and related services to industrial customers.

License Grant

Licensor hereby grants to German Licensee for the Term a worldwide, nonexclusive license or sublicense under the Licensed Patents to develop, make, have made, use, sell, lease, offer to sell, offer to lease, and import Licensed Products in the Field and to develop and perform Licensed Processes in the Field. Licensee shall not have the right to sublicense the Licensed Patents.

License Property

Licensed Patents shall mean
US 5,902,441 – Method of three dimensional printing
US 6,007,318 – Method and apparatus for prototyping a three-dimensional object
US 6,416,850 – Three dimensional printing materials system

Field of Use

The intellectual property right relates 3D printing equipment for the fabrication of plastic parts utilizing organic powder binders.

Field shall means the manufacture, sale and operation of three dimensional printing equipment solely for the fabrication of plastic parts having a polymer matrix phase that is prepared utilizing a powder that contains at least 90% synthetic organic polymeric powder in a process that does not require post-processing other than liquid infiltration of printed parts.

License Grant

The Company has an exclusive worldwide license from the University to use the selective laser sintering technology, the term of which continues until expiration of the patent (920,580) rights that are the subject of the License.

License Property

The License includes the original patents plus a right of first refusal for all improvements thereon.  It requires that DTM commercialize the technology, which it has done and continues to do.

This technology uses laser energy to melt and bond ('sinter') powdered material to create a solid object.  The Company’s Sinterstation Systems employ a combination of software and hardware to produce functional models and patterns from powdered materials. The patterns can, in turn, be used for secondary processes such as the production of non-durable molds and investment casting. Sinterstation Systems also can be used to produce metal prototype mold inserts. Customers input designs into the Sinterstation Systems in the form of CAD drawings. From the CAD file, Sinterstation Systems produce models, prototypes,patterns and tooling in the specified shape.

License Grant

Pursuant to a 1987 contract Licensor, Chief Operating Officer and President of the Company, granted rights with respect to the acquired patents.

In 1990, the Company acquired the patents for this technology from Licensee based upon the Company's sales of stereolithography systems and licensing of the acquired patents.

License Property

The property is Stereolithography technology.

Stereolithography is a solid imaging or rapid prototyping process whereby a laser beam exposes and solidifies successive layers of photosensitive resin until a three-dimensional object is formed in hard plastic to precise specifications contained in CAD/CAM programs. The object may be used as a prototype, model, mold pattern or, in some applications, as an end product.

Field of Use

The field of use is 3D printing.

License Grant

The Licensor, a university foundation, hereby grants to Licensee an exclusive, worldwide right and License, with right to subLicense in the field of batch and/or continuous processing by sintering, whereby sintering (making objects from powder) is accomplished by utilizing microwave energy in air and controlled atmospheres, of green parts prepared from powder metals or metal composites for any application or product with certain exclusions.

License Property

Microwave heating has demonstrated itself to be a powerful technique for sintering various ceramics, especially through the past decade. Microwave heating may decrease the sintering temperatures and times dramatically, and is economically advantageous due to considerable energy savings. However, one of the major limitations is the volume and/or size of the ceramic products that can be microwave sintered because an inhomogeneous microwave energy distribution inside the applicator which often results in a non-uniform heating. Considerable research has gone into making microwave sintering technology commercially viable.

Patent Rights shall mean all of those rights, without limitation as described below   U.S. Patent No. 6,004,505 issued on December 21, 1999, (related to invention disclosure 95-1521) together with all pending and issued foreign counterparts of such patent filed and prosecuted pursuant to Article 6;   U.S. Patent No. 6,066,290 issued on May 23, 2000, (related to invention disclosure 95-1521).   U.S. Patent No. 6,126,895 issued on October 3, 2000 (related to invention disclosure 95-1521).   U.S. Patent No. 6,183,689 issued on February 6, 2001 (related to invention disclosure 97-1788).   U.S. Patent No. 6,805,835 issued on October 19, 2004 (related to invention disclosure 97-1788).   U.S. Patent No. 6,512,216 issued on January 28, 2003 (related to invention disclosure 98-2042).   U.S. Patent No. 6,365,885 issued on April 2, 2002 (related to invention disclosure 99-2188).   U.S. Patent No. 6,812,441 issued on November 2, 2002 (related to invention disclosure 2000-2328).  U.S. Patent No. 6,610,241 issued on August 26, 2003 (related to invention disclosure 99-2141).  

Licensed Product shall mean any process, product or part thereof, or use of a product or part thereof, which is covered in whole or in part by at least one unexpired claim of Patent Rights in the country in which any such process, product or part thereof is made, used, or sold.

Field of Use

Field shall mean the following Batch and/or continuous processing by sintering, whereby sintering is accomplished by utilizing microwave energy in air and controlled atmospheres, of green parts prepared from powder metals or metal composites for any application or product; But specifically excluding non-oxide hard and superhard materials produced by microwave sintering and used in the cutting and wear industry' or powder metal base coils used for downhole drilling.

License Grant

The Licensor granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty bearing, license, without the right to sublicense, to make and sell products under the Subject Patents.

License Property

The action was infringement of United States Patent Nos. 5,554,336, 5,569,431, 5,609,812, 5,609,813, 5,762,856, 5,779,967, 5,785,918, and 5,814,265.

Field of Use

The technology involves a method and apparatus for production of three-dimensional objects by stereolithography. It is a system for generating three-dimensional objects through a step-wise laminar buildup of the desired object, whereby a three-dimensional object is formed and drawn from a substantially planar surface of the fluid medium during the forming process.  Uses include 3D printers.