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Chapter 21
Aims & Objectives
The aim of this chapter is to provide you with a good background
on the commercial uses of powder diffraction, and in particular
those cases in which the data may be used in a court of law. Before you start
this section you may want to briefly review again the sections on indexing,
qualitative, and quantitative analysis since these topics have extensive
application in this section.
More specific objectives are given below:
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You will learn about patents, what they are,
and the importance of powder diffraction data in the specification
of some patents. (A prior knowledge of intellectual property law is not
required.) You will get examples
of the use of powder diffraction in pharmaceutical patents; for these patents,
multi-billion dollar law suits are often required for their protection.
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Polymorphism is a particularly important
issue in the establishment of some patents. A patent may include
a method for the production of a certain polymorph (or polymorphs)
by seeding. The production of new polymorphs may enable a patent
to be bypassed in many instances.
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Another use of powder diffraction potentially involving large
sums of money is in the investigation of
archeological samples. In this
instance, you will learn that powder diffraction is only one of many
scientific techniques that are employed in this field, mainly for
determining whether samples are genuine or fakes!
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Finally, you will learn about the limitations of powder diffraction for
quantitative analysis. This may affect the determination of low level
impurities in mixtures. A detailed legal case
study is given here, illustrating
some of the pertinent points of a case involving the possible contamination
of an agricultural virucidal agent by common salt.
After completing this chapter you should be able to:
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Describe what a patent is and how a patent is obtained and maintained;
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Describe, with examples, the applications and uses of powder diffraction in
patents and summarize specific strengths and weaknesses of the use of
powder diffraction in patents;
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Describe polymorphism and explain how polymorphism may be detected;
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Describe, with examples, polymorphic seeding and the impact
it has on patents;
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Describe, with examples, the use of qualitative powder diffraction
in archaeological studies;
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Describe the factors determining accuracy and limits of detection in a
quantitative powder diffraction analysis.
External Links
This section contains a very large number of external links.
Most are only intended for those who intend to get involved with this
aspect of powder diffraction, but a few are background links relating
to the course material itself.
If you have any questions, points requiring clarification or the like, please
email your questions to the notice board or contact one of the tutors
responsible for this section.
Your tutor for this session is: Jeremy Karl Cockcroft.
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