Superconductivity innovator
moves on
Chu appointed
to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; lawsuit against TCSUH
dismissed
By Ken Fountain
Daily Cougar Staff
C. W. "Paul" Chu, head of the Texas Center
for Superconductivity at UH, was named Monday as the next president of
the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His term will begin
in July 2001.
Under the terms of the appointment, Chu
will spend around 10 months per year over the next few years at the Asian
institution, but will retain his endowed position at UH and will continue
to direct the center's superconductivity research through e-mail and periodic
visits to Houston.
"I envision that HKUST will continue her
tradition of excellence and strengthen her world-class status, and play
an important role in the high technology drive recently proposed by the
Hong Kong government," Chu said in a UH press release.
"I also see the university as a hub to
promote scientific and educational collaboration between Hong Kong, all
of Asia, Europe, the United States and the world, as science recognizes
no border," he said.
TCSUH, the crown jewel in UH's growing
reputation as a major research university, was created by the Texas Legislature
after Chu's 1987 discovery of a breakthrough substance that achieves superconductivity
-- conducting electricity without a loss of energy through "resistive heating"
-- above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.
The announcement of Chu's new appointment
comes less than two weeks after a federal district's ruling involving the
substance.
A judge in Houston approved a motion last
week by the University of Alabama in Huntsville to dismiss its claim that
two of its physics researchers were the original inventors of the substance,
over which they and Chu have held competing patent applications since 1987.
The action effectively ended a decade-long
legal battle between the universities and allows UH and Chu to begin exploiting
the substance's commercial applications.
Du Pont, one of the world's leading science-based
manufacturing conglomerates, has agreed to pay UH $1.5 million immediately
and $3 million later for rights to a patent on the substance.
The fee, University patent administrators
say, is one of the largest paid to a university for patent rights.
Under the terms of the dismissal agreement,
both schools will pay their own legal and court costs.
The substance, based on mixed oxides of
yttrium, barium and copper and known as the "Y-Ba-Cu-O" composition, is
a potential gold mine of industrial applications because it can be used
to design compact and powerful electrical equipment with lower operating
costs.
In its federal lawsuit filed last February,
the University of Alabama sought to overturn a 1999 ruling by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office that granted "priority of ownership" to UH
and Chu.
Alabama claimed two of its researchers,
Maw-Ken Woo and James Ashburn, first invented the composition in Alabama
in January 1987.
They then came to UH to perform experiments
with Chu to confirm that their invention achieved superconductivity at
temperatures of 77 degrees Kelvin or above. The suit claimed UH filed a
patent application on the substance, listing Chu as the primary inventor,
in early February 1987, beating UA's application by seven days.
UH denied the allegations. While Wu and
Ashburn did perform experiments on the substance at UH, they were acting
on Chu's invitation as part of a research group he was directing, according
to the University.
Chu first invited Wu, a former graduate
student of his, to collaborate on his work when they attended a meeting
of the Material Research Society in December 1986 in Boston, Mass., UH
said.
