Apple retains exclusive rights to Liquidmetal alloy in consumer products

May 22, 2014

Apple and Liquidmetal Technologies have announced that the pair will be extending Apple's licensing agreement for the latter's metal alloy through February 2015. Apple had been a licensee of Liquidmetal Technologies since 2010, but thus far Liquidmetal's use inside Apple's products have been limited to the SIM ejector tool that's packaged inside the iPhone and iPad boxes.

The original licensing agreement was good from August 5, 2010 through June 15, 2012. Apple had amended that agreement to go through February 5, 2014 and now the company says that under the Second Amendment, "the parties agreed to amend the MTA and the First Amendment to extend the February 5, 2014 date to February 5, 2015."

Given that Apple has not done anything meaningful with its exclusive rights to use Liquidmetal alloy so far, the agreement is likely to extend Apple's exclusivity for this material and lock competitors out from using the substance in rival products.

Source: Macrumors