Immaterial rights and license agreements
Bifok was kept as a legal entity because of all patents and trademarks filed in that name. It is a complicated and costly procedure to change proprietorship of such immaterial rights. My main task was to keep an eye on alleged patent infringers and to try to sign license agreements with various companies. Some alleged infringers were easy to approach, others not. The combination of FIA and AAS was early promoted by Bifok [2], and Varian discretely showed an interest. I spent some time at the Varian application laboratory in Stockholm together with local AAS experts there and some interesting results were obtained. A license agreement was drafted. But in the very last minute Varian backed out for reasons that we do not know. Back to square one. However, discussion started shortly thereafter with the Perkin-Elmer management in Überlingen, Germany, especially with Dr Bernhard Welz. After an extended proof-of-principle period with many visits to Überlingen, we were finally able to sign a license agreement. The hydride generation FIA-AAS method developed by Ove Åström [3] had previously been patented. Bifok acquired this patent so it could be included in the package of licensed patents. The license granted to Perkin-Elmer was a sole license. This excluded other AAS companies to use FIA-AAS and Bifok was obliged to police alleged infringers. I remember some cases when I with very short notice had to visit companies that Perkin-Elmer had identified and the very unpleasant discussions at these sites. But problems could be solved and the good relationship with Perkin-Elmer was maintained.
2. B.D. Mindel and B. Karlberg, Lab. Practice, 1981, 30, 719-723.
3. O. Åström, Anal. Chem., 1982, 54, 190-193.
