US Patent 7056758 - Manufacture of Nanotube Ribbon Memory

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7056758.pdf

Currently there are three main application areas employing nanotubes- flat panel displays, which use nanotubes as electron emitters, composite materials, which use nanotubes for improvement of mechanical or electrical properties, and mechanical memory, which uses nanotubes as bit storage elements. A great deal of patent literature has been developed in the nanotube flat panel display and nanotube composite material areas, with each of these areas including overlapping claims owned by different corporations. However, the patent literature for nanotube mechanical memory is almost entirely owned by a single company called Nantero. This patent is the 19th patent Nantero has received for various aspects of this technology with many other patents pending and relates to one embodiment of a manufacturing method of the memory. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of making electromechanical circuit elements comprising the acts of: providing a structure having electrically conductive traces and supports, the supports extending from a surface of the substrate; providing a layer of nanotubes over the supports; and selectively removing portions of the layer of nanotubes to form ribbons of nanotubes that cross the electrically conductive traces, wherein each ribbon comprises one or more nanotubes.