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Apple extends its exclusive rights to Liquidmetal for another year

Liquid-Metal-Seamaster-Planet-Ocean

After Apple’s original contract securing the rights to use Liquidmetal’s unique metal alloy in consumer electronic products was extended through February 2015, today proof comes that Apple has once again secured rights for another year, hinting at its continued interest in the material.

On June 17, 2015, Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc. (the “Company”) and Apple Inc. (“Apple”) entered into a third amendment (the “Third Amendment”) to the Master Transaction Agreement that was originally entered into on August 5, 2010 and amended on June 15, 2012 and May 17, 2014 (the “MTA”). Under the MTA and its first two amendments in 2012 and 2014, the Company was obligated to contribute to Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC, a special purpose subsidiary of the Company, all intellectual property acquired or developed by the Company from August 5, 2010 through February 5, 2015, and all intellectual property held by Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC was exclusively licensed on a perpetual basis to Apple for the field of use of consumer electronic products under the MTA. Under the Third Amendment, the parties agreed to extend the February 5, 2015 date to February 5, 2016. The Third Amendment has an effective date of February 26, 2015.

While Apple has yet to use the material in its products, apart from reportedly testing the material in its SIM card injector tool, back in 2012 Liquidmetal’s inventor noted that it would likely take three to five years before the material would be ready for use on a large scale and approximately two to four more years to implement in something like a MacBook casing. What’s more likely is Apple using the technology for smaller parts first, like a hinge or a bracket, according to its inventor. Watchmakers have notably made use of the material for components of traditional watches.

(via MacRumors)

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Comments

  1. taoprophet420 - 9 years ago

    Seems like that could use liquid metal to cover the antenna lines on the iPhone’s or the ante all panel on cellular iPad’s.

  2. I’ve seen some folks mention they want this used on the Apple watch. I don’t know about that, nor when/if the technology will ever be ready. Something that’s ready now however is Tungsten. A Tungsten watch casing would have a nice weight to it and would be impervious to all the wear and tear (and damage) a watch normally suffers. Can’t be scratched by anything other than diamond or corundum (the same mineral used to make sapphire ‘glass’)

    I’ve got an 8 year old Tungsten ring that gets abused regularly (scraped on nails, wood, glass, brick, concrete and stone) and it doesn’t have a single scratch nor dent on it.

    • Wes - 9 years ago

      “A nice weight”? Have you ever held a whole ingot of tungsten? I sure wouldn’t want that much weight on my wrist.
      And as a side note, gold weighs more than tungsten by volume, but gold watches are 18 karat, which weighs less than pure gold, and I believe less than tungsten.
      I too have a tungsten ring, and managed to scratch it pretty badly on a steel stair railing. I slid down the railing only on my hands, and apparently the combination of speed and force was more than sufficient to scratch it.
      It’s actually a bit of a myth that you Need something harder to scratch another object. You Need something harder to Easily scratch it. Sometimes you only need sufficient force to scratch something, regardless of hardness.

  3. bradmacpro - 9 years ago

    Seems like Apple bought the rights to liquidmetal just so no one else get it.

  4. spiralynth - 9 years ago

    ~ CHINGLA CHING ~ $$LQMT$$ ~ BLING BLANG ~

  5. Jordan, SIM ejector tool, not injector

  6. spanky2112 - 9 years ago

    Don’t you mean “extended through February 2016?”

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.