NanoInk, an emerging growth technology company specializing in nanometer-scale manufacturing and applications development for the life sciences, engineering, pharmaceutical, and education industries, has entered into license agreements with Northwestern University that grant NanoInk exclusive commercial access to five new technologies for use in connection with tip-based lithography.

The licensed technologies are Polymer Pen Lithography technology (also known as PPL technology); block co-polymer assisted nanolithography; force feedback levelling of massively parallel polymer pen arrays; massively parallel hard-tip, soft-spring lithography; and gel pen lithography. With exclusive licenses to these novel technologies, NanoInk further broadens its intellectual property portfolio that already includes more than 200 patents and applications filed worldwide.

NanoInk intends to leverage the licensed technologies to expand the capabilities of its existing family of nanofabrication systems. Robert Janosky, NanoInk's president and chief operating officer, explained, “NanoInk is very pleased to have exclusive access to these five new nanolithography technologies and plans to incorporate them into our line of instruments and tools used for micro and nanopatterning applications. We believe that these technologies, when combined with the capabilities of the NanoInk platform, have the potential to lead to significant developments in numerous fields, including large area nanofabrication, photonics, drug discovery, cell biology, and next-generation sequencing.”