14 DAY TRIAL // In its latest 10-K filing Liquidmetal Technologies is making it official that its total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2011, decreased by $19.6 million to $972,000 (from $20.6 million). The reason? A widely-reported licensing deal with a company headquartered in Cupertino, California, which sells the iPhone, the iPad, and Macintosh computers.
According to the document (unearthed by AppleInsider), the decrease in revenue was primarily caused by “the licensing and royalties revenue category due to a one-time licensing fee that occurred during 2010."
The filing states that the $972,000 in revenue came from a combination of $572,000 in product sales, and another $400,000 in other licensing and royalty payments, all carried out through the year 2011.
Needless to mention. the drop is quite steep, but with good reason. Liquidmetal Technologies describes the transaction stating that:
"On August 5, 2010, we entered into a license transaction with Apple Inc. (‘Apple’) pursuant to which (i) we contributed substantially all of our intellectual property assets to a newly organized special-purpose, wholly-owned subsidiary, called Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC ("CIP"), (ii) CIP granted to Apple a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products, as defined in the license agreement, in exchange for a license fee, and (iii) CIP granted back to us a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in all other fields of use.”
To our knowledge, this is the first time a public document emerges, acknowledging the much-rumored licensing deal between the iPhone makers and the company specializing in amorphous alloys known as liquid-metals.
The document further states that, “in connection with the license transaction, Apple required us to complete a statement of work related to the exchange of Liquidmetal intellectual property information.”
“The Company recognized a portion of the one-time license fee upon receipt of the initial payment and completion of the foregoing requirements under the license transaction. The remaining portion of the one-time license fee was recognized at the completion of the required statement of work,” reads the filing.