Patent Roll Call, Spring 2015

Patents play an important role in bringing cutting-edge research to the market. By protecting intellectual property, patents allow research breakthroughs to thrive in the market and become solutions to real-world problems.

Congratulations to these University of Minnesota faculty who were recently awarded patents for their discoveries. To learn more about reporting an invention, contact the Office for Technology Commercialization at 612-624-0550 or umotc@umn.edu.

Engineering and physical sciences

Nanoparticles with grafted organic molecules
Inventors: Lorenzo Mangolini, Uwe Kortshagen and Rebecca Anthony

System and method for making metallic iron with reduced CO2 emissions
Inventors: Richard Kiesel and David Englund

Pulse gap cycling for improved SWIFT
Inventors: Curtis Corum, Djaudat Idiyatullin, Steen Moeller and Michael Garwood

Replication of patterned thin-film structures for use in plasmonics and metamaterials (see license)
Inventors: David Norris, Sang Eon Han, Aditya Bhan, Prashant Nagpal, Nathan Lindquist and Sang-Hyun Oh

Wireless communication system having linear encoder
Inventors: Georgios Giannakis and Zhengdao Wang

For more information on licensing engineering and physical sciences technologies, contact Dale Nugent or Eric Hockert.

Life sciences

Pharmaceuticals and diagnostics

Lantibiotics and uses thereof
Inventors: Daniel O’Sullivan and Ju-Hoon Lee

For more information on licensing pharmaceuticals and diagnostic technologies, contact Rajesh Udupa.

Medical technology

Fractalkine binding polynucleotides and methods of use (see license)
Inventors: Efrosini Kokkoli, Brett Waybrant, Srinand Sreevastan and Ping Wang

Haemophilus parasuis polypeptides and methods of use
Inventor: Simone Oliveira

Liquid embolic material including carboxymethyl chitosan crosslinked with carboxymethyl cellulose
Inventors: Jafar Golzarian and Lihui Weng

Catheter insertion sterilization
Inventors: Benjamin Arcand, Joseph Hale, Nikhil Murdeshwar and Bryan Rolfes

Thermochemical ablation of bodily tissue
Inventor: Erik Cressman

Tracking a guide member
Inventors: Victoria Interrante and Lane Phillips

For more information on licensing medical technologies, contact Kevin Anderson or Rebecca Gerber.

Software and information technology

Automated mapping of land cover using sequences of aerial imagery
Inventors: Shyam Boriah, Ankush Khandelwal, Vipin Kumar, Varun Mithal and Karsten Steinhaeuser

For more information on licensing software and IT technology, contact Andrew Morrow.