The Department of Justice has given its stamp of approval for five oil companies along with the Universtiy of Texas at Austin to develop nanotechnology that would explore oil and gas reserves.
According to a press release from the DOJ, the subsurface nanosensors would crawl into oil and gas well bores, where they would explore every nook and cranny of the hydrocarbon reservoirs. The goal is more efficient exploration -- an expensive endeavor that only big oil companies can now afford.
The companies participating in the venture, called the Advanced Energy
Consortium, are BP America, ConocoPhillips Company, Marathon Oil
Company, Occidental Oil & Gas Corporation, Shell International E
& P, Schlumberger Technology Corporation and Halliburton Energy
Services. The university will own all inventions that come out of the project. The companies will get "royalty-free, nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide perpetual license to use the invention for noncommercial internal purposes," but they won't license out, produce, market or distribute anything.
Apparently AEC members wanted to be sure they wouldn't get smacked for antitrust. The DOJ assistant attorney general Thomas Barnett responded in a letter to the AEC that the consortium:
