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Akron Polymer Systems says it's clear demand for optical film, other research will grow in 2008
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Saturday, Dec 29, 2007
When liquid crystal display televisions first came out, and disappointed viewers found they could only see ghostly images when seated to the side, a pair of University of Akron polymer professors came to the rescue.
Frank Harris and Stephen Cheng developed a ''compensation film'' that increased the viewing angle. Their invention, patented by UA, is still the dominant technology used on modern LCD screens.
But the company Harris and Cheng formed in 2002 to supply the film to the industry never took off. A Japanese firm that licensed the technology pays UA royalties, but it found someone else to make it.
After retiring in 2005, Harris kick-started his dormant dreams for that company, and the reinvigorated Akron Polymer Systems has done so well, it added its 10th employee last month, expects to be looking for a larger home in 2008, and is once again considering its potential as a manufacturer.
''Things are looking very optimistic and promising,'' said William R. Fuller, named to the new position of vice president of business development.
Fuller, whose resume includes five years heading Kent State University's technology transfer office, said his job is to look for companies interested in the next generation of optical films, medical-quality plastic, and high-performance polymers for yet-unknown applications.
''We're already working with several partners,'' Fuller said. ''We're sort of the contract engineers and we participate in intellectual property ownership of anything we create.''
The optical film that Akron Polymer Systems specializes in is called ''polymide.''
APS has already successfully partnered with a medical company that was seeking a thinner,
stronger medical-grade material for use in balloon angioplasty procedures.
''We met the specification they set out for us. Now we're joint owners of it and we'll get some commercial royalties,'' Fuller explained.
The company is financed, in part, by the corporations that will benefit from its discoveries. APS also received a $1.5 million grant through the state's Third Frontier Initiative to advance its optical film research.
As a result, the company has no debt, no investors and has seen positive cash flow for three years running.
Universities collaborate
The roots of Akron Polymer Systems can be traced to a marriage of Kent State University (which pioneered LCD technology) and UA (a world leader in polymer development).
Both schools, along with Case Western Reserve University, formed the Advanced Liquid Crystalline Optical Materials and through that collaboration, Harris and Cheng came to understand the limitations of LCD screens.
Manufacturers of large televisions faced a huge commercial barrier, Fuller noted.
''Nobody is going to spend $4,000 on a television you can watch only if you're sitting directly in front of it,'' he said.
Harris and Cheng recognized that a film they were working on might solve the problem, and after a few more years to create the production process, the technology was licensed to the Japanese firm Nitto Denko.
In addition to large LCD TVs, the film had many other uses, not the least being on instrument panels in plane cockpits, where it's critical that dials can be read from any angle.
The professors founded Akron Polymer Systems to be the commercial source of the film, but Nitto Denko found another manufacturer, so APS existed mostly on paper.
Improving product
When Harris retired from UA three years ago, he figured it was time to improve the original film.
''People are always looking for better pictures and lower cost,'' Harris said. UA gave him room at a pilot plant facility on Gilchrist Road and Harris started pounding on the doors of Fortune 100 companies, looking for partners to provide the research money.
''These were companies who would sell the products, but we would get some intellectual property rights,'' he explained.
APS employs a product development team made up of eight people, all with Ph.D.s. Five are focused on optical films; three are working on other applications, including fuel cell membranes, resin for aerospace uses and biomedical polymers.
Ideally, APS would like to make and sell the films it develops.
''We have pilot-scale production capability here and we keep expanding our equipment and ability to make higher production,'' Fuller said.
Demand from others
It's extremely rare for a university spinoff company to make the leap into manufacturing, Harris said. But even if that never happens, ''we could go on forever making things for other people. There's a lot of demand,'' he said.
Harris recently returned from a trip to Japan and Korea, where he visited with LCD TV manufacturers to talk about the improved optical film APS is developing.
''We got commitments from them to sample and evaluate the material'' over the next couple of months, he said.
In addition to looking for a larger location, APS expects to hire another two to four people in the coming months. And Fuller's hiring was a significant sign of the company's growth.
''We're at the state where we have products to market,'' Harris said.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
When liquid crystal display televisions first came out, and disappointed viewers found they could only see ghostly images when seated to the side, a pair of University of Akron polymer professors came to the rescue.
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