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Technology Stocks : Research Frontiers (REFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (8179)

1/3/2014 10:01:04 PM

From: N. Dixon

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 50189

I've posted who Bob is and who Research Frontiers came about. I'll put that back up and I've added a 1999 interview, which was before film, infrastructure reached critical mass and the licensees.

The story of Bob Saxe does not begin with the development of SPD. It started when he working in another field entirely after graduating from Harvard, when his relative Leopold Mannes informed him that the "Land 1937 Patent" could be purchased. Saxe spent $168,000 (a great sum in the 1960s) for the rights to a particle that was undeveloped and Land had never gotten to work.

It is Bob Saxe's pioneering work that has changed the landscape of not just the glass industry but of EPDs used in E-Book products and electronic shelf labels. His company, Research Frontiers, Inc., has over 450 patents and patents pending as his company continues to develop future generations of the SPD. The most sought after "next step" as it were, has been black particle film. SPD works with light. You can't "tint" light. The reason and SPD window appears "blue" is the same reason we perceive the sky as "blue." It has to do with the absorption of wave lengths. Red has a very long wave length, blue is very short. The blue wavelengths are scattered more widely by the oxygen and nitrogen molecules, and more blue comes to our eyes. This effect is called Rayleigh scattering, after Lord Rayleigh, the British physicist who discovered it. It was confirmed by Albert Einstein in 1911.

This development of the "suspended particle device" first patented in 1937 and now commercialized in the first glass (and plastics) products is a monumental achievement in the field of physics.

Below is some of the history of Robert Saxes' amazing family. Leopold Mannes is directly responsible for putting the Land Patent in his stewardship. It is a remarkable family and a remarkable achievement.

Leopold Mannes

"With financial backing, Mannes and Godowsky built a dedicated laboratory and in 1924 took out additional patents on their work. In 1930 Eastman Kodak was so impressed with their results that they contracted them to move to Rochester and take advantage of Kodak's research facilities."

There is a reason this company was named "Research Frontiers" it aptly describes the pioneering work in physics that has resulted in the ability to use "suspended particle device" technology in commercial products. With financial backing, Robert L. Saxe built a dedicated laboratory and took out additional patents on his work. In 2001 the first commercial product using Edwin Land's "suspended particle device was sold. It was a landmark in physics and a revolutionary change to the glass industry.
To see just some of the products available today and in the near future, visit my thread

Research Frontiers, Inc., REFR

1999 Interview with Robert L Saxe