NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Life Technologies and Nanosys have entered into a cross-licensing deal to share rights to intellectual property covering fluorescent nanocrystals, which are also called quantum dots.
The firms said that the deal is expected to result in the development of new tools to detect counterfeit products worldwide. The firms said that between them they have over 270 patents and applications, including 84 issued US patents, for using fluorescent nanocrystals.
"Life Technologies' quantum dots are currently being used in life science research and pathology, but there are vast opportunities to use them in a wide variety of applications," Paul Grossman, senior VP of corporate development and strategy for Life Technologies, said in a statement today. "Our new partnership with Nanosys will allow both companies to expand the opportunities for our combined technologies, and further the reach of Life Technologies into the applied markets."
The firms estimated that the global counterfeit good trade, excluding counterfeit money, is around $1 trillion annually. They said that the quantum dots technology will enable manufacturers to trace the source of their materials and manage and track product shipments.
Financial and further terms of the licensing agreement were not disclosed.
In 2005, Invitrogen, which is now a division of Life Technologies, purchased Quantum Dot, a firm that makes the QDot semiconductor nanocrystals. Invitrogen said at the time that the particles demonstrate unique optical properties, such as photostability, narrow emission spectra, and brightness, and can be used in a wide range of applications in life-science research including gene expression and proteomics.