An exclusive license held by JDS Uniphase (San Jose, CA) to US patent 4,809,291, issued to Tso Y. Fan and Robert L. Byer, "Diode Pumped Laser and Doubling to Obtain Blue Light," expires in December 2000, according to Jon Sandelin in the office of technology licensing at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA). And there is likely to be much broader interest in the patent at the end of this year than there was in February 1989, when the patent was originally issued.
"This blue laser turns out to be a fairly fundamental patent," he said. "That's why we're seeing a lot of interest in it, and I expect that we will have a fairly broad, nonexclusive licensing program come next December." Sandelin said interest in licensing usually comes from small or startup companies that would consider an early market of a few million dollars as worthwhile. At the end of next year, however, Sandelin is expecting the blue microlaser patent to break the traditional patterns. "Potentially some of the large companies, including some large Japanese companies, can see this is something that they need," Sandelin said.