More on the Goodenough Li-ion battery case

In 2001, the University of Texas and H-Q sued NTT over technology of John Goodenough concerning a new mix of cathode materials for rechargeable lithium ion batteries.
The suit alleges that an NTT scientist stole the battery research while working as a visiting researcher on Goodenough's team in 1993-94.

The Austin American Statesman quoted Goodenough: "This battery has legs. Like anything else, though, it needs customers. There needs to be a demand for product."

The problem is now that there is a customer who isn't licensing:

Black & Decker Corp. is buying the batteries from a Massachusetts company and using them in its new line of 36-volt power tools, sold under its DeWalt brand.

Sales of the new tool line hit $20 million in the second quarter alone.

The problem, according to the university, is that Black & Decker is essentially bootlegging its technology.

Neither the tool maker nor A123 Systems Inc., the Watertown, Mass., battery maker, has a license to use the patents.

So far, legal bills over the Goodenough patents have outstripped the licensing revenue from the H-Q deal, which took effect Jan. 1, 1997.
Goodenough and the university don't receive royalties until H-Q first pays its legal bills.

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Meanwhile, in the area of lithium battery fires, from the Chicago Tribune:

So far, more than 5 million notebook batteries in the U.S.--and nearly 10 million worldwide--have been recalled this year by manufacturers including Dell, Apple, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba.

Every one of the recalled batteries has one thing in common.

"They were all Sony batteries," said Richard Stern, associate director at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (www.cpsc.gov), the government agency that oversees consumer product recalls.