US Patent 7488671 - Masking nanoporous tempates

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7488671.html

Nanoporous templates have been used for several years to grow uniform arrays of vertical nanowires and nanotubes on a substrate. This patent from General Electric teaches patterning the template using a mask to facilitate battery fabrication. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of making a nanostructure array comprising:

providing a template comprising a plurality of nanopores;

disposing a masking material on the template such that a first number of the plurality of nanopores are fully coated by the masking material and a second number of the plurality of nanopores are not-fully coated by the masking material; and

forming a plurality of nanostructures in only the second number of the plurality of nanopores.

However, some relevant prior art appears to have been overlooked such as Bae et al. "Selective Growth of Carbon Nanotubes on Pre-patterned Porous Anodic Aluminum Oxide" (Advanced Materials, 14, No. 4, 2002) - See Fig. 1.