Patent application

It appears that an interest has been taken in a patent application that Uwe, Per-Oskar and I wrote up a couple of years ago about being able to streamline CIGS module fabrication using some new technology. But at the time neither the university nor Solibro, the solar spin-off that's now partially owned by Q-Cells in Germany, was interested in the costs involved in securing the patent. It was given back to us to apply for a patent on our own, if we wished. We didn't, being the cash-strapped researchers that we are. The idea we were trying to patent was going to take quite a bit of development. In the past 2 years, Per-Oskar has been working on it with Uwe's help and has made significant headway. As for me, I haven't done anything except throw the initial idea to Uwe and P-O to implement.

Too bad that we're not going to get rich off of it - we merely get a one-time insignificantly small sum to keep us happy. There'll probably be a celebratory cake at some point too, I expect.

Is it coincidence that Uwe and P-O also happen to be fellow carpoolers?