Apple licenses super-tough "Liquidmetal" technology

Apple has acquired a license to use the intellectual property developed by Liquidmetal Technologies.

There was no official announcement, the information was uncovered in an SEC filing by AppleInsider.

On August 5, 2010, Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Liquidmetal”), entered into a Master Transaction Agreement with Apple Inc., a California corporation (“Apple”), pursuant to which (i) Liquidmetal contributed substantially all of its intellectual property assets to a newly organized special-purpose, wholly-owned subsidiary (the “IP Company”), (ii) the IP Company granted to Apple a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products in exchange for a license fee, and (iii) the IP Company granted back to Liquidmetal a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in all other fields of use (together with all ancillary agreements, the “Master Transaction Agreement”).

Liquidmetal is interesting stuff. According to the website, the characteristics of the material is as follows:

• High Yield Strength
• High Hardness
• Superior Strength/Weight Ratio
• Superior Elastic Limit
• High Corrosion Resistance
• High Wear-Resistance
• Unique Acoustical Properties

Liquidmetal also exhibits excellent strength and elastic properties:

I've come into contact with Liquidmetal in the past, as part of the casing for a super-strong Sandisk Cruzer Titanium USB flash drive. The casing of this drive took an insane amount of punishment and survived. I stamped on it, ran my office chair over it, drove over it, threw bricks at it, hit it with a baseball bat and it just wouldn't break. There's no doubt in my mind that Liquidmetal is tough stuff.

Liquidmetal could make for some interesting portable products.