News Briefs (Feb. 10, 2006)

Canon USA Inc. has acquired Salt Lake City-based technology solutions provider Uinta Business Systems Inc. and its subsidiaries in what it says is an effort to expand its direct presence in the western US. Under the agreement, the specific terms of which were not disclosed, Uinta founder Joe Weis will remain as president and continue to have responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the organization. He will report to Ryoichi Bamba, executive vice president and general manager of Canon's Imaging Systems Group, who will serve as chairman of Uinta. Uinta has more than 80 employees and more than 4000 customers. It has two subsidiaries, Uinta Document Systems Inc. and Uinta Information Solutions Inc. . . . The Microscopy Group of optics and optoelectronics maker Carl Zeiss AG of Germany has granted Madison, Wis.-based Prairie Technologies Inc. licenses on several patents, retroactive to Dec. 1, 2005. These patents protect the use of ultrashort laser pulses in the femtosecond range for multiphoton fluorescence excitation in laser scanning microscopy (LSM). Carl Zeiss had acquired the exclusive global rights to this method, including the right to grant sublicenses, from the Cornell Research Foundation of Ithaca, N.Y., in 2004. Carl Zeiss uses this specimen-protecting technology, which enables a particularly high depth of penetration in the object to be examined, to generate maximum-resolution three-dimensional images in its LSM 510 laser scanning microscopes. Prairie Technologies, which also makes laser scanning microscopes, says the licenses will allow the company to offer multiphoton microscopes to the scientific community. . . . Image Technology, a supplier of 1X full-field photomasks with headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., announced that it has acquired a Lasertec large area mask (LAM) defect inspection tool to enhance their production of advanced 9-in. photomasks. The company says the acquisition makes it the first photomask maker in the world to offer sub-micron detection on 9-in. photomasks and can also be used to inspect advanced phase shift masks. The tool is also capable of detecting surface contamination as well as inspecting photomasks between 4 to 9-in. in size.