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 A comprehensive report on Federal R & D Projects has been released by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP).  The study was carried out by RAND a nonprofit research institute based in Santa Monica, CA.  RAND created a searchable electronic database that is the essence of the report.

The study noted a substantial regional concentration of federal R & D money.  Fifteen states receive 80% of federal R & D dollars, with California in the lead, receiving an annual $14.4 billion.  The report (approximately 700 pages) prepared from the database is titled: “Discovery and Innovation: Federal Research and Development Activities in the Fifty States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”  Information is available online at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1194.

 The European Commission has proposed creation of community patents to give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent legally valid throughout the EU.  At present, patents are granted either on a national basis by individual countries or through the European Patent Office.

 Saudi Basic Industries has selected Union Carbide Corporation’s Unipol process for a new polyethylene plant to be built in AlJubail, Saudi Arabia.  The facility will have a capacity of 400,000 metric tons per year of linear-low-and-high density polymers.

 Dow Chemical will build a world-scale propylene oxide-styrene monomer (POSM) plant at one of its Gulf Coast sites.   The unit will use POSM technology licensed from chemical firm Nizhnekamskneftekhim (Russia).  Dow’s Freeport, TX and Plaquemine, LA sites are the most likely locations for the plant because of their existing infrastructure and port access. 

 Kellogg Brown & Root has won multiple contracts from Ferrostaal Akteingesellschaft (Germany) and Caribbean Nitrogen Company Ltd. (Trinidad and Tobago) to supply technology licenses, basic engineering design and other related services for an ammonia process plant in Point Lisas, Trinidad. 

 ABB Lummus Global and Equistar Chemicals have plans to purchase the Novolen polypropylene (PP) technology business of BASF subsidiary Targor.   Lummus and Equistar have formed an 80-20 joint venture, Novolen Technology Holdings, that will acquire Targor’s catalyst, process, and product technologies as well as the right to market and license Targor’s metallocene PP technology. 

 Chevron Phillips Chemical Company has licensed its antifoulant technology to Dow Chemical Canada Inc.  The technology, known as CCA-500, will increase the performance of steam crackers by minimizing the formation of both coke and carbon monoxide.

 The Court of Appeal in the Hague, specializing in patent cases, has ruled that Nalco Chemical Company is infringing on the European patent for Compozil held by Eka Chemicals by selling Nalco 8692 to paper mills.  The Court ruled that the product Nalco 8692 should be considered as a colloidal silica sol within the meaning of Eka’s European Compozil patent.   The court granted a preliminary injunction.

 Morton Custom Plastics (Morton, IL) has acquired exclusive rights to use Aristech Chemical’s Altair Plus thermoformable sheet in the agricultural equipment and lawn care equipment markets.

 Symyx Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) has a research, development, and licensing agreement with ICI to discover specialty materials for ICI to use in developing high-performance coatings, specialty adhesives, and binding agents for textiles.  ICI will fund Symyx’s discovery efforts and have exclusive rights to commercialize materials discovered as a result of the collaboration.  Symyx also will receive royalty payments on sale of products stemming from Symyx’s research. 

 Hemispherx Biopharma Inc. signed a licensing and marketing agreement with AOP Pharmaceuticals (Vienna, Austria) for facilitating product introduction of Ampligen (poly 1:poly C12U), a potential chronic fatigue syndrome treatment.  The agreement covers segments of both the Western and Eastern European markets.  Ampligen is a member of the nucleic acid class of drugs. 

 Sicor SpA has acquired a non-exclusive license for the technology rights to the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) for vitamin B12 from Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR).  Under the agreement, Sicor SpA will purchase the API from HMR for resale throughout the European Union.   Sicor SpA will do this for several years until it is able to manufacture the API at its plants in Italy.

 Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Aventis Pharmaceuticals formed an alliance for the joint development and commercialization of drugs for the treatment of inflammatory diseases.  Under the technology transfer portion of the deal, Millennium will provide Aventis with rights to its drug discovery technologies in exchange for payments of up to $200 million over a five-year period.

 Genzyme Corp. is suing Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. in an attempt to foil the company’s strategy of developing its own versions of some of the world’s biggest drugs.  The suit alleges Transkaryotic’s drug for Fabry disease, called Replagel, infringes Genzyme’s U.S. Patent 5,356,804.  In another development Transkaryotic is defending a patent challenge in U.S. District Court in Boston from Amgen Inc.  Amgen claims that Transkaryotic’s version of its Epogen drug violates several of its patents.

 U.S. Appeals Court reversed a decision by a lower court that had given Lilly’s antidepressant drug Prozac patent protection through 2003.  The appeals court reversed the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana that allowed Lilly to hold two patents on the world’s number-one antidepressant.  In a separate decision, the federal court affirmed the 2001 patent on Prozac, which recorded worldwide sales of $2.61 billion in 1999.

 Avecia is acquiring the DNA manufacturing business and related intellectual property of Hybridon Inc. for $15 million.

 Cytovax Biotechnologies Inc. signed a development and license agreement with BioChem Pharma Inc. to develop a vaccine and a monoclonal antibody therapy against infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

 Immunex Corporation licensed rights from UroCor Inc. to cancer-derived antigens toward development of monoclonal antibodies directed against prostate cancer. 

Alkermes has an agreement with Glaxo Wellcome under which Glaxo Wellcome obtains a broad license to use Alkermes’s AIR Technology.

Johnson Matthey’s catalysts and chemicals division has introduced a chiral catalyst technology for sale.  The catalyst uses rhodium compounds named Doyle catalysts after their inventor, Michael Doyle.  Johnson Matthey says the catalyst can be used in a range of chiral syntheses particularly for the pharmaceutical industry.

Motorola Inc. and Amtel announced a licensing agreement that provides for Motorola to share its BiCMOS technology with Amtel for wireless applications.

Spyglass Inc. and TiVo Inc. announced that TiVo licensed Spyglass Device Mosaic 4.0 for use in its next generation software platform and service.  Spyglass will work to port Spyglass Device Mosaic to the Linux operating system and assist in the integration of the technology with TiVo’s Linux-based platform.

Coollogic Inc. said that it would license its Java-based, embedded Linux operating system to Acer Inc. for its family of Internet appliance (IA) products.  The software is expected to be used in wireless, set-top-box, smart phone, home gateway, hand-held and other Internet-enabled devices.

Mysticom Ltd. (Israel) disclosed that IBM has licensed its MystiPHY110 DSP-based 10/100 Mbit/sec Ethernet physical-layer (PHY) core.  IBM will offer the core as part of its 0.15-micron SA-27E ASIC product line.

Toshiba Corp. will provide Dongbu Electronics Co. Ltd. with 0.25-, 0.18-, and next generation 0.15-micron (or 0.13-micron) CMOS process technology.  The license covers Toshiba’s CMOS process and intellectual property cores, including standard cells, I/O cells, analog cells and micro cells with embedded flash memory.

Tyco Electronics Corp. and Fujikura Ltd. (Toyko) have completed a licensing agreement for the production of AMP Lightray MPX interconnection system products.  Both companies will multisource this fiber optic backplane interconnection product line, which is used in the telecommunications and advanced networking markets.

Tyco Electronics Corp., Harrisburg, Pa., has a patent license agreement with British Telecommunications plc, which will permit implementation of BT technology by Tyco.  The license will enhance the Tyco Electronics Fiber Optic Division’s product offering in the global optical coupler market.

Teradyne Inc. (Boston, MA) and Molex Inc., (Lisle, II) have signed a second-source licensing agreement under which Teradyne grants Molex the right to manufacture, market, and sell the high-speed differential version of the VHDM interconnect.

Intel Corp. introduced software that will reduce latency and improve clarity when calling PC-to-phone over the Internet.  Intel will license its software to ITXC Corp., a wholesale Internet telephony service provider that leases gateways and offers telephony services to portals, Web communication companies and Internet service providers (ISPs).

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. will use IBM Corp.’s silicon germanium (SiGe) process technology to develop its next-generation low-power communications ICs.

 Intel Corp. and VIA Technologies have partly settled a lawsuit related to cross licensing of the Intel P5 and P6 chipsets.   Under the terms VIA will pay Intel an undisclosed lump sum and royalty fees.