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By Sonia E. Miller
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Volume 233-Number 21
©2005 New York Law Journal Online
It’s a small world. How often
have we heard that expression? At the nanoscale, small takes
on an entirely new meaning, especially for this group of leaders
who have made large investments of varying proportions.
Nanotechnology funding in research and development
is huge, with approximately $982 million requested for federal
investment in nanoscale science, engineering and technology
for fiscal year 2005.
Venture capital investment in tiny technologies
is robust. Industry reports indicate that more than $2 billion
has been invested in nanotechnology by venture capital firms
since 1997.
Couple these figures with a few of the well-respected
principals advancing nanotechnology, and that amounts to a
big return on innovation and society’s
future well-being.
Following is a brief conversation with six of
the nation’s leaders in nanotechnology
and their take on its implications for the legal profession.
The Nobel Laureate
,
shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery
of carbon 60 — called buckminsterfullerene or buckyballs
— made wherever carbon condenses. This discovery led
to the development of carbon nanotubes, used today in many
nanotechnology developments.
At Rice University in Texas since 1976, Mr. Smalley helped
found the Rice Quantum Institute, serving as chairman for
10 years. He was named to the Gene and Norman Hackerman Chair
in Chemistry, became a professor in the Department of Physics,
and was appointed director of the Center for Nanoscale Science
and Technology. In addition to receiving numerous honorary
doctoral degrees and awards, and serving on several advisory
boards and writing many papers, Mr. Smalley is one of the
most cited scientists in nanotechnology research.
What entices
you about nanotechnology?
How powerfully
that one word describes the frontier of science, in particular
the physical sciences and engineering. It is an overarching
technology that includes a lot of technologies at the nanometer
stage that already exist today. It is simply the art and science
of building stuff that does stuff on the nanometer scale.
All the machinery of life itself inside a living cell is a
nanotechnology made up of atoms that serve a particular function.
When you control the atoms, you control just about everything.
What is a buckyball
and its relationship to the carbon nanotube?
A buckyball
is a molecule comprised of approximately 60 atoms of carbon.
It is the structure of a soccer ball one nanometer in diameter.
When carbon condenses by itself, the result is a buckyball.
If it condenses when there is a small vapor of nickel or cobalt,
for example, you trick the carbon into making tubes, with
a strength between 30 and 100 times stronger than steel.
If you had a
crystal buckyball, what might be some nano-projections?
I believe the
biggest breakthroughs on the nanometer scale will be in the
critical areas of energy, human health and information technology.
The Nano Guru , is the architect behind the National
Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the federal government’s
long-term investment in nanoscale science, engineering, and
technology initiated in 2001.
Mr. Roco is senior advisor for nanotechnology
at the National Science Foundation and chairman of the U.S.
National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee
on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology, the coordinating
body of the NNI. Author of hundreds of scientific and engineering
articles, books, and manuals, he has received several patents,
as well as numerous awards for academic, technological and
science policy achievements. Mr. Roco was named the 2004 Nanotechnology
Policy Leader by Scientific American.
What are the
goals of the NNI?
To develop and
implement a long-term vision at the national level for nanotechnology,
focusing on four goals: maintaining a world-class research
and development program; facilitating the technology transfer
of products from research laboratory to market; developing
educational resources and a skilled workforce; and supporting
the responsible development of nanotechnology.
On a global
scale, how does the NNI compare with other countries?
The NNI spends
about 25 percent of global government investments, with the
United States accounting for approximately 50 percent of highly
cited papers. We have significant interactions with more than
25 countries.
What would you
advise the legal community regarding the advance of nanotechnology?
We are in the
‘Age of innovation.’ Society is changing not only
through nanotechnology, but in connection with converging
technologies integrated at the nanoscale, impacting policies
about investments, laws, and education. The legal system is
important to guard personal freedom of decision and the right
of each individual to have access to the best information
in a society expected to become more complex because of the
rapid advance of these technologies.
The Business Executive
is the founder and chairman of Zyvex Corporation, the first
molecular nanotechnology development company. He contributed
$3.5 million to establish the NanoTech Institute at the University
of Texas at Dallas; co-founded the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative;
has been the recipient of numerous entrepreneurial awards;
serves on several nanotechnology boards; written various publications;
holds several patents; has testified before the Senate Committee
on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the 21st Century
Nanotechnology Research and Development Act; and was present
when President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in
2003.
What is the
mission of Zyvex?
To develop the
technology to manufacture atomically precise, affordable and
adaptable tools that enable nano-manipulation; materials for
molecular engineering; and structures to help build the next
generation of machines.
In your testimony
to the Senate committee, you stated: “Our most competitive
industries are also our least regulated — semiconductors,
personal computers, software, and the Internet.” Do
you believe nanotechnology should be regulated?
I believe in
markets. Sometimes you have to regulate where there is a market
failure. There is no market failure in nanotechnology. It’s
too early to regulate. If we prematurely regulate nanotechnology,
we shut down our ability to innovate and develop the next
industrial revolution.
The federal
government funds studies on the societal implications of nanotechnology.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently created Category
977 specifically for nanotechnology. What, in your belief,
are some anticipated legal implications of nanotechnology?
Patents concern
me greatly, particularly in nanotubes. There are so many patents
being issued. I fear that we are setting ourselves up for
many years of IP lawsuits. This will have a chilling effect
on innovation.
The University Professor
is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Electrical
and Computing Engineering at the University of California,
San Diego. He also co-founded three companies — Nanogen
Inc., Nanotronics Inc., and Integrated DNA Technologies —
and holds more than 30 patents.
His initial exploratory research efforts within
Nanotronics, subsequently renamed Nanogen, were carried out
with the intent of developing novel DNA-based technologies
for biomedical and nanotechnology applications. Nanogen has
since commercialized its microelectronic DNA chip technology
— the NanoChip Electronic Microarrays and the NanoChip
Molecular Biology Workstation — used to understand the
correlation between genetic variation and disease, and for
human molecular identification in forensics. Since then, it
has introduced the NanoChip 400, its second generation instrument.
What makes Nanogen
so successful?
At point of
entry, Nanogen was lucky. A lot of IP and technology was in
place and we were wise enough to protect it and position ourselves
to capitalize on it. The underlying technology crossed into
other areas and we nurtured that. Patience, positioning, synergy
between the market and the technology, and perception helped
us to succeed.
Nanogen has
agreed to provide you with $300,000 of funding over a two-year
period to support your research. What will be its focus?
Exploring further
use of electric field-based technology for nanofabrication
and assembly of nanostructures as well as the integration
of nanostructures with other devices. My work focuses on discovering
synergies between top-down and bottom-up processes in order
to develop new nanomanufacturing techniques.
What would you
predict to be the future benefits of nanotechnology?
An evolutionary
progression will be seen in materials, electronics, and the
biomedical area of nanotechnology. Impact also will be seen
in the area of cancer and therapeutic diagnostics, as well
as energy, and the making of new structures through carbon
nanotubes. Attorneys will need to be ready to address issues
related to predisposition to diseases and drug toxicity due
to human diversity.
The Venture Capitalist
leads New York-based Harris & Harris Group, Inc., a publicly
traded venture capital company listed on NASDAQ as TINY. Harris
& Harris focuses solely in making initial investments
in “tiny” technologies, which it defines as nanotechnology,
microsystems, and microelectromechanical systems. They are
convinced that tiny technology entities are the next frontier
for capital formation and company building and that the revolutionary
breakthroughs occurring at the nanoscale have the ability
to transform future products as we know them today.
What is not
nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology
is not a single scientific discipline, investment, nor market
space, but rather a collection of enabling and potentially
disruptive technologies.
What makes nanotechnology
different from previous innovations?
It makes it
difficult to start a lab in a garage. There is a lot of capital
investment at the research level. Nanotechnology is very rigorous
science protected by rigorous patents. It is about new compositions
of matter that have different material characteristics because
of their size. It will redefine how we think about governing
future industries. The courts and legal system need to be
educated to understand this difficult and complex science.
The Executive Director
,
is director of collaboration programs at the National Center
for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), a Michigan-based not-for-profit
membership group. It is the nation’s largest cross-industry
research and development consortium devoted exclusively to
manufacturing technologies, processes, and practices. Commissioned
by the National Science Foundation, the NCMS recently published
the nation’s first aggregate survey of the emerging
nanomanufacturing industry.
What were the
objectives and methodologies used to conduct the survey?
The objective
of the survey was to evaluate key aggregate trends and concerns
via a targeted questionnaire offering a ‘snapshot’
of manufacturing activities at the nanoscale.
In which targeted
industries did you find nanotechnology developments?
The top end
users are electronics; coatings; devices and sensors; automotive
applications; raw materials supply; biotechnology and biomedical;
and polymers and petrochemicals.
What top challenges
face the nanomanufacturing industry today?
The top industry
concerns are: public perception that nanotechnology products
are far from commercialization; insufficient investment capital;
intellectual property issues impeding commercialization progress;
process scalability; high cost of processing; and that the
societal benefits of nanotechnology are not yet recognized.
The implications of nanoscale products need to be recognized
because liability could extend back to the manufacturing process.
,
an attorney in private practice in New York and the District
of Columbia, is the founder and president of the Converging
Technologies Bar Association.
THIS ARTICLE IS REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION.
© 2004 ALM PROPERTIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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