US Patent 7316061 - CNT heat sink grown in porous layer

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7316061.html

This patent from Intel presents some basic claims for the use of the anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) method of carbon nanotube growth for the purpose of forming a heat sink for an IC. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for forming an electronic assembly, comprising: forming a porous layer on a microelectronic die having an integrated circuit formed therein, the porous layer having a plurality of pores; and growing a plurality of carbon nanotubes in the plurality of pores.

However, the use of porous AAO templates was well known prior to the filing of this patent for growing vertical arrays of nanowires or nanotubes. See for example earlier prior art such as
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6129901.html
or
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=984503