Both of the patents described below are composition-of-matter patents. Thus, enforcement of these patents requires only simple identification of the claimed chemical structures.
US Patent #7,160,978:
Aromatic amide polymer systems and methods for making the same.
This is a composition-of-matter patent covering one class of polymers, iminols.
Iminol polymers are divided into two structural subclasses: 1) default-directional iminols, and 2) fully vector-directional iminols.
Default-directional polymers are those polymers in which all of the bonds that are free to rotate are oriented co-axially or parallel with respect to each other, which happens when iminol polymers made exclusively from para-oriented monomers (diamines and diacids, or aminoacids). Rigid-rod polymers are also exclusively made from para-oriented monomers and are the existing-art conformational analogs of our default-directional polymers. Para orientation refers to a pair of bonds on opposite sides of a benzene ring, one pointing “north” and the other pointing “south.” This is the only ring-positioning orientation that co-axially aligns the pair of bonds.
Vector-directional iminols have extra bonding features that restrict rotational freedom of all backbone bonds, which provides a single thermodynamic minimum for each polymer linkage and the entire polymer backbone. There is no existing-art conformational analogs of vector-directional polymers.
This patent covers materials that have the claimed bonding structures in the claimed orientations (ring-nitrogen atoms next to the amine groups of amine-containing monomer moieties and hydroxy groups next to the carboxylate groups of acid-containing monomer moieties).
When the monomers are combined in a reaction vessel, the amine and acid groups react with each other to form amino-acid (amide) linkages, and then the hydroxy groups and ring-nitrogen atoms interact with the amide linkage to lock in the fully vector-directional iminol polymer linkage.
Patent #7,786,250:
Vector directional polymer systems and methods of nanostructural self assembly.
This “umbrella” composition-of-matter patent covers a generalized approach to polymer-linkage design. This approach encompasses 1) iminols, 2) a minimum of six other polymer classes, and 3) additional polymers that have yet to be designed or specified but use the described polymer-linkage design.
This patent is a straightforward attempt to patent all polymer systems that are based on our insights into nanostructural self-assembly. Although umbrella patents are fully legal and supported by historical precedent, there is “policy” (both official and unofficial) against granting them. Despite such policies, the patent office has deemed this umbrella patent sufficiently meritorious to allow it to issue. In the future, if this patent is challenged, we will prosecute patents for each individual polymer system described therein, which should be sufficient protection under any standard.
This patent claims roughly a dozen bonding schemes for “freezing” polymer linkages into singular, thermodynamically favored conformations (molecular postures). These schemes and conformations are intended to be comprehensive and exhaustive in terms of all possible variations of matter and all possible variations of bonding schemes.
In addition to the iminol bonding scheme claimed in the first patent, this patent claims additional schemes that apply to other classes of polymers. These additional schemes were selected according to their possibility of stability, not according to their likelihood of stability, their economic affordability or their ease of synthesis or production. In other words, our goal was to encompass all possible ways of freezing polymer linkages into one favored posture, not just the best ways.
The best of the seven claimed polymer systems are the iminol, benzobisoxazole and aramid polymers.
