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Peggycilla911 and others: I don't think the World has yet fully woken up to the likely mineral supply-side crisis of the future regarding lithium/nickel/cobalt. EMH is rather under the radar, which, for intelligent investors makes its SP look very cheap at present. I believe that EMH stands as one of the most de-risked and undervalued lithium plays because:
1) Its Cinovec project is of considerable magnitude with extended mine-life.
2) Location neighbours Saxony and is almost perfect for the German motor manufacturers (+Tesla?). Logistical access good. Power and water supplies good. History of mining (tin) at Cinovec, with support of local ex-mining community, unlike the deposit in Portugal.
3) Heavily supported by the CEZ Group, itself 70% owned by the Czech Govt.
4) Sentiment among the influential EU nations is shifting seriously towards EVs, renewable energy and lithium-based power storage to iron out the fluctuation in wind/tide/solar power generation.
5) Hard-rock (Zinnwaldite) deposits may have significant advantages over brine and clay deposits as far as the environmental impact of the mining is concerned. Chilean Govt expressing concerns over the water husbandry at its major Atacama brine deposits. Similarly with the Mexican Govt regarding its clay deposit at Sonora.
6) Some concerns over political influences such as the Mexican Govt imposing taxes on any exported minerals.
7) Considerable tensions between Australia ( home of major Spodumene deposits) and China, the latter being by far and away the predominant force hitherto in the lithium space.
8) As has been repeated many times on this board, it is likely that, as lithium demand cranks up, demand will drastically outstrip supply, given that new mines take two to three years minimum to begin actual production.
9) Creative entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk are already way ahead in their thinking and planning. Musk is very environmentally switched on and there may be some repudiation of some of the brine/clay mining which extracts a very heavy environmental price.
10) If Joe Biden gains The White House on November 3rd, he has promised trillions of $ in support of climate change initiatives and that could drive a major change in global sentiment.
The smart money IS already making quiet moves. Talk will get rapidly converted into real action as it becomes obvious that we are heading towards a massive supply crisis of essential minerals. I believe EMH is in prime position. GLA ! Keep safe!
JBongo: I may well have misunderstood the legal position. In the legal world, every word seems to count and important words have special meanings and implications. I wish I understood this better. The process is very rule-bound, of course, as well. It's why lawyers can charge so much !!!
Most grateful to anyone who can help us to follow the to-ing and fro-ing of what looks like a mixture of three-dimensional chess and poker !! Good luck to everybody.
Morbox: Incredibly helpful searches- thank you VERY much indeed! I am NOT legally trained, nor am I a quantum chemist, but I have three university degrees in the natural sciences, so have some acquaintance with the technical jargon. My take on the legal issues:
1) Samsung have made a counterclaim, due to have been lodged by 14/9/20, claiming that certain Patent(s) are Invalid.
2) Nanoco has requested a voluntary dismissal of this counterclaim, citing Exhibit 1, which is US Patent No. US 7,588,828 B2, dated 15/9/2009. This Patent incorporates prior US application, International application and GB application, dated 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively.
3) From rule 41(a), as laid out so helpfully by Morbox, there are strict rules under which such a dismissal is valid, such as if Samsung had failed to file an answer or filed a motion for summary judgment.
------------------oOo-----------------
The content of Nanoco's Patent (Exhibit 1) is very complex, but telling. It appears to be the Patent central to the "Molecular Cluster Seeding Process" and, I believe, central to Nanoco's IP infringement suit against various Samsung companies.
1) Quote: "Molecules of the cluster compound act as a seed or nucleation point upon which nanoparticle growth may be initiated. In this way, a high-temperature nucleation step is not required to initiate nanoparticle growth because nucleation sites are already provided in the system by the molecular clusters. The molecules of the cluster compound act as a template to direct nanoparticle growth."
2) Furthermore, quote: "Various embodiments of the present invention are utilized to form a pleurality of monodisperse nanoparticles that are substantially pure."
3) And, quote: "In various embodiments, the nanoparticle nucleation stage is separated from the nanoparticle growth stage, enabling a high degree of control of nanoparticle size."
4) And, quote: "Nanoparticle shape: The shape of the nanoparticle produced according to embodiments of the present invention may be spherical. In other embodiments, the nanoparticle has the shape of a rod, disc, tetrapod or star."
Comment: Could this last point include the Nanorods that Samsung is planning to engineer for its proposed Quantum Nanorod Emissive Diode (QNED) technology?
Comment: It would appear that the Exhibit 1 Patent is extraordinarily comprehensive in its scope. Could it be that it is fundamental to ANY low-temperature Quantum Dot/Rod manufacturing process ?
Pure opinion: I am absolutely not giving up on Nano. My first investment here was over nine years ago and I have followed Nano's fortunes through thick and thin with varying levels of investment. I made a large (for me) commitment a month or so ago and have added since. Please comment/correct any of the above. Truly, GLA !
gkb47: Brilliant ! Thanks so much for the link to that very recent paper. Extremely helpful and actually rather encouraging. Basically and contrary to much recent dis-information:
1) Antibody response (mostly IgG) on blood-test for about 59 days post-infection, but Plasma-Cells lurk in the bone marrow and may give a much longer-term immunity.
2) T-Cell response active for about 100 days. Longer-term T-Cell unknown.
3) Some of the common-cold viruses are Coronaviruses and there may be some cross-immunity with SARS-COV-2 virus.
On the issue of government response, I am usually reluctant to comment, but:
1) At the very outset, Sir Paul Nurse, Nobel Laureate and Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, offered the whole of his department to the government for testing. He was rebuffed. Smart politicians would have put him in charge of a nationwide operation to convert numerous labs to Covid-19 testing months and months ago. Nurse would have had enormous professional respect and leverage to talk to university/institutional/public health/private labs.
2) Baroness Harding was a disastrous choice to head the Test and Trace programme, in my view. Crucially, Test and Trace demands the highest co-ordination with Public Health England (PHE), albeit decimated by repeated budget cuts in the last ten years. Dido Harding's husband, John Penrose, sits on a right-wing think-tank whose expressed aim is to commercialize the NHS and to dismantle and ultimately abolish PHE. You couldn't make it up !!!
3) Only two members of the Cabinet have a training in science and neither of those is in biological science. It has been obvious for some time that none of Johnson, Cummings or Hanc-ck have any real grasp of the complex medical/scientific issues, despite a plethora of advisers.
I despair and it is only because of the inspired work of the private scientists, like AS et al, that we have any chance of getting through this ghastly pandemic, and mostly despite Government. My opinion only, obviously. Sorry to blow-off!
gkb47: Yes, very good point. Basically, the testing programme has to become "intrusive", rather than just "reactive". It is interesting that the paper discusses the behavioural aspects, too. I am not vilifying young people, but I am concerned about their compliance in both respecting social hygiene and eventual "test-fatigue". I am expecting a serious blip as young people go back to university, which is a very social experience and rightly so. Could this explain part of the reason why Govt has insisted on schools and universities returning on time, such that any element of herd immunity gathers pace before we go into the possibly very treacherous winter and additional problems with seasonal influenza?
It is interesting to note that in New York, which suffered a very bad early spike, antibody testing among the poorer communities demonstrated a 56% or so immunity level which obviously helped to suppress further spikes. Herd immunity is not considered to be truly effective until 70% or more of the population are protected in one way or the other, but every little helps as the virus can only survive and propagate by infecting new, unprotected individuals. Happily, virus mutation trends towards being less injurious, if sometimes more infectious, as has already happened with the D-614-G mutation.
Some good will come out of all this in that scientists will gain a much better understanding of the T-Cell immune response which appears to be the primary defence in children and young people. There is some indication from studies in the Far-East that T-Cell immunity in folk who suffered the SARS-COV-1 virus in 2003 still have T-Cell memory and immunity to both SARS-COV-1 and the present SARS-COV-2 viruses.
Girlupnorth and Abdalian: Thank you both very, very much indeed. Most helpful. The paper to which you linked us, Girlupnorth, demonstrates just how incredibly complicated are the theoretical and practical requirements for erecting a comprehensive testing programme. It has been obvious for some time (from Bayesian Conditional Probability Theory), that low prevalence is a major constraint, mitigated somewhat by repeated testing.
It is interesting to see that "one-off" testing for sporting/cultural events (airports not mentioned!) obviously requires the highest Sensitivity.
Interestingly, the paper strongly implies that the viral loads are very low before symptoms develop. There is no great discussion regarding asymptomatic infection, which is a major concern for us all.
Anyway, a great help and thank you. I totally agree with you, Girlupnorth, that all is looking good for AVCT. Once again, well done to AS and Team for all the sterling work going on to surmount this immensely complex challenge.
Doze: Thank you. I was just a bit perplexed by Bell's comment. A very high Sensitivity would give positive for "Covid in all its forms", unless the Affimer has been tweaked to respond to a more integral part of the live virus than the spike proteins. We know that these spike proteins persist and, therefore, would give a false positive as far as INFECTIOUS status is concerned in post-infection individuals. Bell is implying that testing will differentiate among the various states of Covid-19 INFECTIVITY status. Clearly, the huge advantage of a user-friendly, cheap, high-quality antigen test is to test frequently and, thereby, catch the early asymptomatic, but highly contagious, phase at the earliest possible opportunity.
Anyway, all looking very encouraging and well done AS and Team.
RevoltingPeasant and others: Thanks very much indeed for very informative links, particularly comments from Sir John Bell.
May I address some questions, please, to you, Ophidian and other luminaries?
From the recent RNS, As hinted that he was aligning AVCT's product very much with UK Govt policy: ie very high Specificity (to differentiate between Covid-19 and seasonal influenza) and targeting of INFECTIOUS people. Sir John Bell confirms the latter.
How will the LFTs discern INFECTIOUS people, as opposed to "diagnose Covid in all its forms" (quote Bell)?
Does this suggest a relaxation of Sensitivity to favour high viral loads?
Or, will there be tweaks to the Affimers used to discriminate INFECTIOUS people from INFECTED people?
Comment: I understand that the D-614-G mutation now very prevalent is more infectious, but less injurious.
Any comments would be much appreciated. thanks very much indeed.
Botbot1202: I bought a few more today. Amerlogue and Screenlearner have been brilliant in giving very helpful background on the lawyers that Mintz are bringing on side. I am very encouraged by this. If Mintz/Litigation Funders had any serious doubts about Nano's case, I don't think we would be seeing this quality of legal muscle being marshalled. I will continue to buy on weakness as I believe that Nano's position is considerably derisked. GLA and keep safe !
dsmith57: It may be useful to remember that many exceedingly bright people are working 24/7 to expedite the very complex processes required in the testing programmes. Hitherto, testing programmes have taken years to develop. The Covid-19 disease is still poorly understood. Genetic mapping of the SARS-Cov-2 virus was completed very rapidly (hence early ability to identify the D-214G mutation), but the epidemiology and, crucially, the immune response mechanisms are still under intense scrutiny. Please understand that human immuno-genetics is arguably the most complex scientific enquiry we will ever undertake. It makes Quantum Physics look tame.( And, yes, I have solved the Schroedinger Wave Equation, but in only one dimension and that took 13 pages of algebra!).
Add to this the political overtones, with (sadly) rather ignorant politicians both sides of the pond struggling to get an intellectual grip on the primary issues and you have a heady mix.
To help answer your second point: I understand that Dr Fauci is due to speak in public on Tuesday, September 8th and Cytiva is holding a Webinar on Thursday, September 10th.
I sense your questions are genuine and you are not re-ramping. Many of us are LTHs and, as with any speculative share-holding, we have to make our own call on risk/reward. I am holding tight and have not heard anything that discourages me as far as AVCT is concerned. DYOR , GLA and keep safe!
Ophidian: I would just like to say that your contributions to this board have been absolutely exceptional. You are uniquely well informed to guide us. I do hope that you may feel able to continue posting your precise and professional wisdom. You know better than most just how complex are the many issues surrounding Covid-19. Thank you very much for everything you've done for us thus far. Please stay !
Spike66 and others: You make some very good points about antibody testing. There is clearly a place for both antigen and antibody testing. Govt policy will now have a very strong economic agenda, for obvious reasons. Joined-up thinking would demand a comprehensive antigen/antibody strategy and this is exactly why I think AVCT's collaboration with Abingdon Health is such a crucial step. AS cannot make statements regarding Govt policy, but I believe he is giving us a huge hint. I believe that we will shortly hear more from Ministers when quality verifications/manufacturing capacity are bolted down. I believe that the UK Govt will feel obliged to pay for nationwide testing programmes. It would be absolutely unacceptable to favour only those who can afford even cheap tests, particularly as antigen testing will need to be repeated frequently. Such Govt subsidy would obviously have implications for AVCT's profit-margin, but the quid-pro-quo would be contracts for very high numbers of testing-packs, guaranteed payment, etc. A no-brainer ! In addition, this Govt is very "world-reputation" minded and it would burnish its own (at present rather shaky as far as Covid-19 is concerned) credentials, both as a pioneer of integrated testing/data-collection and as a potential exporter of highly developed tests. If Cytiva come through as we hope, the Anglo/US tests could become a true global game-changer.
Anyway, antibody testing has its place, but minor in my view in the short to medium-term, and mostly for epidemiological purposes. Antibody testing will be required in large numbers as we get closer to the much vaunted vaccines, but that, I believe is for the much further-out time frame. For those who prove positive on antibody testing, there may be a reprieve from regular antigen testing, but, if the antibody titre drops quite rapidly, for those who prove negative there is no knowing whether they are true negatives or false negatives. And the big question remains whether antibodies provide the mainstay of immunity and what part the T Cell response (not easily measured at this point in time) plays. This is exactly why the testing programmes need to be comprehensive and repeated and, crucially, be data-linked. This is the only way to get any sort of control of the pandemic particularly as we head into Winter. Keep safe !
My take on today's RNS is essentially very positive. I believe that AS's words have been very carefully chosen and represent a significant alignment with long-awaited, forward-looking, joined-up UK Government policy. Policy that could be reproduced by coherent governments in the Northern Hemisphere as we approach Autumn/Winter.
1) Government desperate to get the economy stabilized, hence schools reopening and pressure to get people back to work.
2) The panacea of vaccines highly unlikely for many, many months. Sir John Bell cautions against rushed-through vaccines.
3) AVCT's engagement with Abingdon Health highly significant. At last, a comprehensive plan to integrate nation-wide testing under a now expanded Rapid Test Consortium (hitherto mostly antibody).
4) Rapid, user-friendly POC antigen testing absolutely crucial for the near/mid-term.
5) AS's emphasis on Specificity very telling. Govt petrified about being able to control a conflation of Covid-19 and seasonal influenzas, where false-positives could overwhelm NHS. Also, false-positives are bad news economically- unnecessary quarantining of non-infectious individuals.
6) With very regrettable decimation of regional public-health bodies, Govt will require integrated systems for nationwide data collection to achieve any sort of comprehensive control of outbreaks and, eventually, rolling out of vaccines. Hence expansion by Abingdon Health of data-services, which will have to include age/gender/ethnicity/GPS data.
It is gratifying that AVCT is now visibly central to prospective Government policy. Yes, time is of the essence, but Govt and all parties will want to get this buttoned-up at the highest standards and if that means minor delays, so be it.
Finally, I believe that Cytiva is holding a Webinar on Thursday, September 10th. We may hear more detail about progress with their Affimer-based rapid saliva test then. All worth waiting for in my opinion. Holding tight. Good luck everybody and keep safe.
Screenlearner: So good to have such cogent commentary. I am taking a lot of comfort from this BB ! My take on this is that:
1) The request to delete Samsung Display comes from the Samsung's highest command. The Chairman is Lee Kun-hee, but his son, Lee Jae-yong, is vice-Chairman and de facto boss. Lee Jae-yong was convicted of corruption in 2017 and served jail-time. He is renowned for his "cold" determination !
2) The request is a sign of some weakness, in my view. It appears to hand Nano/Mintz Levin a degree of leverage and is possibly an admission by Samsung that their case is weak and they want to move on.
3) The Samsung high-command will have made a calculation, both financial and reputational, regarding the law-suit, with the prospective revenue from QD-OLED and QNED playing a significant role.
4) Regarding Mintz Levin and the litigation funders. I admit I am making a massive assumption, but I do wonder if Mintz Levin is not essentially the funders. Why not ? ML is uniquely positioned to evaluate both the strength of Nano's suit and the court procedures/history of prior IP suits/calibre of defendants and their lawyers.
5) As you suggest, this may come down to a game of poker and ML/funders may take this to the wire. The $14 Billion that ME has mentioned is clearly a starter-for-ten. Great negotiating stance to start high and negotiate down.
It is fact, not fantasy, that the two sets of lawyers are in negotiation with regard to the deletion of Samsung Display. In the game of poker, yes, absolutely, ML/funders will extract a high price for this deletion. I would love to think that any settlement could amount to pleural $Billions. Sitting tight in the belief that Samsung's request will expedite the process. Good luck everybody!
Super postings from Screenlearner, ddubya, amerlogue, PiratePete, lee7 and others. Thanks so much. Very complicated and very fascinating. We can be fairly sure of the following, I think:
1) There is internal conflict within the Samsung group, principally between Samsung Display and Samsung Visual.
2) Samsung's Chairman has given Samsung Display priority for the development of QD-OLED (and QNED?).
3) Samsung Display urgently wanting to proceed with QD-OLED, with panels proposed for release Q1-2021.
4) Samsung and Nano's lawyers in negotiation regarding deletion of Samsung Display as defendant.
To me, Samsung's request for delay does hand some power/leverage to Nano in terms of an early settlement. Samsung's Chairman would want to exclude Samsung Display from future liabilities that might be owing to Nano in the event of Nano's success at Trial. On the other hand, deletion of Samsung Display as defendant provides opportunity for Samsung to both pursue QD-OLED uninhibited and for Samsung to frustrate legal proceedings with further delays. It is one thing for Mintz Levin to not oppose the move for a 14 day extension; quite another to agree to deletion of Samsung Display unless there is some major quid-pro-quo offering from Samsung.
I take your point, PiratePete, that Samsung Display were not involved in the manufacture of QLED screens. If the alleged IP abuse goes back to 2014/2015, then surely Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and Hansol are the alleged culprits.
One of the strangest things in all this is the almost complete absence of Dow. I think that you, Amerlogue, raise a very good point about whether there was some complicity between Dow (and Corning) and Samsung. At this time, Dow was heavily distracted by its merger with duPont. Dow had targeted LG, but failed to entice them into their Trevista QDs. With SAIT and Hansol making a major success of their SUHD TVs, Dow may have preferred to effectively withdraw with a back-room deal with Samsung to sweeten things. Samsung would not have wanted Dow as a major competitor. Samsung's strategy appears to be to dominate global markets with repression (including alleged IP fraud) and collaboration when it suits them (their 2015 investment in Nanosys). Samsung may well have kept Nano sweet (2017 co-presentation) owing to the putative interest in Nano by Merck announced on August 1st, 2016. Once Merck's hesitation became obvious, Samsung becomes the all-powerful conqueror and drops any collaboration with Nano.
As far as movement from here, I sense that the litigation funders, who will be in cahoots with Mintz Levin, will be playing the percentages game and Samsung know it. Thus, I do anticipate a settlement, not Trial, but at much less than the sums bandied about. The next few months will be crucial, I think. Good luck everybody.
I've just picked up on this link from another (nickel miner) board:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvCx6y5L14
It makes interesting listening on Tesla's Battery-Day on September 22nd and, more importantly, comments by Rodney Hooper on the likely extreme battery metals supply shortages in the future. Interesting to hear about Tesla's incredibly innovative plans and the European motor manufacturers having to play serious catch-up, even with massive European governmental support. Exciting times !!
GinandMilk: Yes, a real pleasure that posters are so civil. We are grateful to TheOldBee and many others who have set brilliant examples by being very dignified posters. A smile and a bit of grace cost absolutely nothing and it's so good to learn, learn, learn !
HBomb5- Yes, I do look to the day when TRX may consider a US listing which would be a prompt for a consolidation. It has cost TRX rather dearly to build their physical footprint in the US, but this will surely reap dividends in the longer-term future. I also feel that TRX stands as an ethical, socially useful investment. The desperate cries of anguish from the ladies who have endured the standard uro-genital mesh and TRX's much better tolerated organic prostheses speak loudly in TRX's favour. I can see applications for TRX's porcine tendon/ligament zenografts in hand/forearm/shoulder surgery as well as knee surgery. Wishing everybody good will and keep safe !
AVCT did a 100-into-1 share consolidation in early 2016, from 6.7 Billion shares to 67 Million. They have since expanded the share base to about 250 Million shares and they are now worth about £400 Million. TRX have several strings to their bow and good coverage in the USA and Europe. The UK-listed microcaps are in the spotlight. As we achieve more containment of Covid-19 (which we will), the patient will be rewarded I think. Good luck everybody and keep safe.
GreenKitty: Inevitably, sentiment runs high on a turbocharged share like AVCT. Your longevity in AVCT is absolutely exceptional and a credit to you. In the many thousands of postings over the last many weeks, there has not been mention of one dimension to AVCT's likely future success and that is dividend policy. Of my five or six holdings spread across biotech, pharma, electronic tech and lithium mining, I have two, perhaps three shares where my average is happily very low. Your average on AVCT sounds incredibly low, an SP that would be the envy of even Myles McNulty ! AVCT is a multi-platform business that has every chance of serious earning power. Eventually, that earning power will be distributed in dividends and the key factor for any holder is their average price. Worth holding on, isn't it ? You have the patience of a saint and you, unlike most of us, seem not to need to obsessively check the SP. James Montier would describe such a share for you as "a coffee-can share"- something you tuck away and forget about. You bought AVCT when very few believed in it. Warren Buffett would have called this "a cigar-butt share"- ignored and very, very undervalued. His timeline is preferably forever and he ignores the day-today pulsing of the SP. Things are very different now, of course and you are the patient beneficiary. It's taken me way too long to learn how to invest properly ! Very best of luck whatever you decide !