Agilent seeks to regain spectrometry IP

Agilent Technologies has asked the Federal Trade Commission to allow it to license intellectual property (IP) it sold to Bruker in 2010 to gain approval for the purchase of rival scientific instrument maker Varian. The IP, which has to do with spectrometer design, was part of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry business that is now owned by Analytik Jenna. Agilent wants to license the design IP from Jenna and, in return, license design IP to Jenna for inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. FTC says it will decide after May 1.