Royalty Report: Semiconductors, Solar, Material Composite – Collection: 91122

License Grant

Licensor hereby grants to Licensee a worldwide, exclusive, revenue-bearing license under Licensor’s rights in the Patent Rights and the Know-How to (a) make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and export Licensed Products that are within the Field of Use, and (b) and to practice Licensed Processes in the Field of Use.

License Property

Licensor has developed and/or otherwise possesses rights to certain technology related to the manufacture of semiconductors and, in particular, photovoltaic platforms and devices.

The lead technology, named Mears Silicon Technology™, or MST®, is a thin film of reengineered silicon, typically 100 to 300 angstroms (or approximately 20 to 60 silicon atomic unit cells) thick. MST® can be applied as a transistor channel enhancement to CMOS-type transistors, the most widely used transistor type in the semiconductor industrry.

Patent: 6,741,634; 6,830,984, 6,833,294; 6,878,678, 6,891,188

Field of Use

“Field of Use” means the manufacture and use of photovoltaic devices, and all solar energy applications.

License Grant

Licensor and their Netherlands Affiliate hereby grants to Licensee and its Affiliates for the Term a nonexclusive license, with the right to sublicense, under the Licensed Claims to develop, make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, lease, and import Licensed Products in the Territory and to develop and perform Licensed Processes in the Territory. Nothing in this Agreement is intended to grant a license to anyone to make, use, sell, offer to sell, lease, or import Equipment that infringes any patent owned by Licensor.

License Property

Licensed Product shall mean products comprising Permitted Structures that absent the license granted hereunder, would infringe one or more Licensed Claims.

Licensed Claims shall mean any and all non-Equipment claims entitled to priority to U.S. Serial No. 09/227,679 and/or 60/070,991, including, without limitation, non-Equipment claims in U.S. Patent Nos. 6,749,687 and 7,105,055.

6,749,687 –  In situ growth of oxide and silicon layers
7,105,055 – In situ growth of oxide and silicon layers

The lead technology, named Mears Silicon Technology™, or MST®, is a thin film of reengineered silicon, typically 100 to 300 angstroms (or approximately 20 to 60 silicon atomic unit cells) thick. MST® can be applied as a transistor channel enhancement to CMOS-type transistors, the most widely used transistor type in the semiconductor industrry.

Field of Use

This agreement pertains to the semiconductor industry.

License Grant

The Licensee has an exclusive worldwide license and rights to sublicense any and all intellectual property conceived or developed under its sponsorship at the University.

License Property

Currently, research and development of the licensee's flexible, thin-film organic photovoltaic (OPV) and inorganic Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technologies is being conducted at University's (Licensor's) research facility under the seven year 2013 Research Agreement dated December 20, 2013.

OPV are Organic semiconductors made from carbon-rich compounds with a structure tailored to optimize a particular function, such as responsiveness to a particular range of visible light. The use of organic compounds as semiconductors for commercial applications is very new.

Field of Use

Licensee is using it in organic semiconductor based photovoltaic cell technology.

OPV are Organic semiconductors made from carbon-rich compounds with a structure tailored to optimize a particular function, such as responsiveness to a particular range of visible light. The use of organic compounds as semiconductors for commercial applications is very new.  The Licensee is using it in organic semiconductor based photovoltaic cell technology. A particular advantage of OPV technologies is the low cost of the materials used for the solar energy generating layers. Additionally, all of the fabrication temperatures are low and environmentally “green”, greatly reducing the ancillary costs required in conventional solar cell production.  Furthermore, the growth of the thin film layers can be accomplished directly onto the plastic or metal foils and therefore is no need for energy-intensive and expensive epitaxial growth required by inorganic semiconductors such as silicon or GaAs. Rather, there is the opportunity to “print” organic solar cells onto continuous rolls of plastic in an ultra-high-speed manufacturing process. The potential for printed electronics – making solar cells “by the kilometer” rather than on one substrate at a time – makes OPV a potentially revolutionary step in the widespread acceptance and deployment of solar energy. Since the organic films are see-through, lightweight and extremely thin (in this case the entire structure is only 0.1% the thickness of a human hair), they can be made semitransparent and adjusted to any desirable color. As a result, there are significant opportunities to achieve heretofore unrealizable applications such as car paint that allows vehicle coating to act as a source of power for an electric car; windows that can be coated with a clear semi-transparent film that captures photons from the sun to provide power for inside of the building, and fabric that can be made coated in order to make clothes, tents, flags, or lightweight roll-out power mats.

Since the organic films are see-through, lightweight and extremely thin (in this case the entire structure is only 0.1% the thickness of a human hair), they can be made semitransparent and adjusted to any desirable color. As a result, there are significant opportunities to achieve heretofore unrealizable applications such as car paint that allows vehicle coating to act as a source of power for an electric car; windows that can be coated with a clear semi-transparent film that captures photons from the sun to provide power for inside of the building, and fabric that can be made coated in order to make clothes, tents, flags, or lightweight roll-out power mats.

License Grant

Licensor hereby grants and agrees to grant to Licensee, effective upon license Effective Date, a world-wide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid up and royalty-free license, without the right to sublicense, under the Licensor's Intellectual Property Rights, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import or otherwise commercialize or exploit Licensed Products, to use the Licensor's Technology in connection with the foregoing, and to otherwise operate Licensee and commercialize its products as contemplated in the Master Agreement. It is understood that the foregoing license to Licensee includes, without limitation, the right to change and make improvements and extensions to the Licensor's Technology. Furthermore, it is understood that Licensee shall have the right to commercially exploit such changes and improvements in accordance with such license.  This is to be used in the manufacture of Licensee's solar modules.  

Subject to exceptions in this Agreement, Licensee shall pay royalties to Licensor for the use of MNIP. The royalty shall be based on two main elements: the success of the relevant MNIP in achieving Cost Savings and the success of that MNIP in achieving Added Value.  MNIP means Material New IP.

Licensed Products means Wafers, Cells, and/or Modules, as the case may be, in which the Wafers are made using String Ribbon Technology.

License Property

The Licensor develops and manufactures multi-crystalline silicon wafers utilizing String Ribbon™ proprietary wafer technology. The technology involves a unique process to produce multi-crystalline silicon wafers by growing thin strips of silicon that are then cut into wafers. This process substantially reduces the amount of silicon and other processing costs required to produce a wafer when compared to conventional sawing processes. Silicon is the key raw material in manufacturing multi-crystalline silicon wafers. The wafers they produce are the primary components of photovoltaic “PV” cells which, in turn, are used to produce solar panels.

Licensed Products means Wafers, Cells, and/or Modules, as the case may be, in which the Wafers are made using String Ribbon Technology.  This is to be used in the manufacture of Licensee's solar modules.  The Licensor develops and manufactures multi-crystalline silicon wafers utilizing String Ribbonâ„¢ proprietary wafer technology. The technology involves a unique process to produce multi-crystalline silicon wafers by growing thin strips of silicon that are then cut into wafers. This process substantially reduces the amount of silicon and other processing costs required to produce a wafer when compared to conventional sawing processes. Silicon is the key raw material in manufacturing multi-crystalline silicon wafers. The wafers they produce are the primary components of photovoltaic (“PV”) cells which, in turn, are used to produce solar panels (also referred to as solar modules).

License Grant

The Licensor signed a License Agreement with the Chinese Licensee for solar ink and paste technology.

License Property

Nanoparticle ink technology formulations of aluminum, copper, nickel and silver will be delivered using aerosolized jet, inkjet and spray coating methods and other non-contact printing techniques that will enable ultra-thin silicon wafers to be used for photovoltaic (PV) applications.  

Currently, solar cell wafers must be thick enough to survive the direct contact metallization processes, which use screen printing equipment that comes in direct contact with the wafer and can exert enough force to cause ultra-thin wafers to break. Silicon is the largest cost in conventional solar cell production and the primary material in solar cells, making up 50-60% of overall cost, by APNT's estimates.

Field of Use

Using methods such as inkjet, aerosol jet and spray coating — all non-contact methods — will allow solar companies to save substantial material costs on the amount of silicon used by enabling the use of thin wafers.

License Grant

The University hereby grants to the Licensee and its Affiliates an exclusive, worldwide License to make, have made, use, offer for sale, have sold, sell and import Products within the Field and within the territory for a period of eight years from the effective date of this Agreement. If in the final year of the License Term Company is actively marketing and selling Products, then the License Term shall extend for another eight year term. Company shall have the exclusive right to grant SubLicenses to third parties.

License Property

The technology being Licensed is based on Assistant Professor of Chemistry’s “electronic glue” chemistry. This technology, management believes, has various commercial applications where more efficient transfer of electrical charges between nanocrystals is desired, such as printed semiconductors, roll-to-roll printed solar cells and printed nano-sensors.

Licensed Patents
Application Number Title Type Country Status Date Filed
PCT/US10/32246 Materials and Methods for the Preparation of Nanocomposites PCT United States Pending 4/23/2010
61/214,434 Materials and Methods for the Preparation of Nanocomposites Provisional United States Expired 4/23/2009
61/264,790 Materials and Methods for the Preparation of Nanocomposites Provisional United States Expired 11/28/2009

PCT/US10/32246  Disclosed herein is an isolable colloidal particle comprising a nanoparticle and an inorganic capping agent bound to the surface of the nanoparticle, a solution of the same, a method for making the same from a biphasic solvent mixture, and the formation of structures and solids from the isolable colloidal particle. The process can yield photovoltaic cells, piezoelectric crystals, thermoelectric layers, optoelectronic layers, light emitting diodes, ferroelectric layers, thin film transistors, floating gate memory devices, imaging devices, phase change layers, and sensor devices.

Field of Use

“Field” shall mean all fields of use other than devices and materials used and sold for their Peltier and/or Seebeck properties.