Optech Acquires Exclusive Patent Rights for Underground Cavity Monitoring Technology

Optech Incorporated announced August 19 that it has assumed full ownership of certain patents directed to underground laser-based cavity scanning devices, including its Cavity Monitoring System (CMS). The original intellectual property of the CMS has been held by Noranda Incorporated’s Technology Center, which developed and patented its remote, contactless measurement technologies for stopes, bore holes and other underground mine features in the late 1980s. Optech has been manufacturing, marketing and selling the CMS under license from Noranda since 1991; the product is now in use in hundreds of mines worldwide on all inhabited continents, according to the news announcement.