The patents, patent filings and other IP assets of Bristol-based NanoMagnetics, which developed a route to a 4.7Gbyte 1.8 inch diameter disc drive, are up for sale following the appointment of administrators for the company.

“There are some 30 patents and patent filings and IP which cost £9m to develop,” Mark Ford, of administrators Smith and Williamson, told Electronics Weekly. “We expect to get a significant sum for them. We’ve already been contacted by several interested parties.”

NanoMagnetics was founded in 1997 to commercialise materials for the data storage market. The company had a SMART award and venture capital totalling £9m from investors.

The IP portfolio comprises eleven granted international patents with more than twenty additional filings pending. The portfolio covers the production of a novel class of materials as well as five application areas.

“It came to the point where the company either needed a very large amount of VC funding to implement its plans or could cash in and sell its patent portfolio,” said Ford. The backers are thought to have decided they could not see a profitable exit strategy for themselves.

The IP has potential applications in high density recording for hard disc drives, flexible media including tape and high capacity floppy, and MRAM. It also covers the production, device implementation and use of self-organised magnetic nanoparticles for data storage applications.

The administrators pointed out that the key data storage patents have a priority date of November 16, 1996 which is 18 months prior to IBM’s first filings on nanoparticulate media.

www.nanomagnetics.com