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With regard to Leica claiming no equipment advances are in the pipeline...
well they would, wouldn't they!  I have no idea if there are or not, but 
either way Leica *have* to claim not, otherwise they won't sell any of the 
model they have on sale now.

Taking a rational guess, if advances are already published in the 
literature, then they will (or at least should) be made available as as 
soon as they can reasonably be implemented. Leica could deliberately 'sit 
on' these improvements to extend the life-cycles of the current products, 
but remember, even if you do have an impervious patent, there are plenty 
of up-and-coming alternative techniques for improving resolution beyond 
the diffraction limit. Competition tends to speed the rate of upgrades and 
improvements, and deliberately retarding them can be a risky gamble.

Saludos

Chris

Dr Chris Wood
Instituto de Biotecnología
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Av. Universidad 2001
Col. Chamilpa
Cuernavaca 62150
Morelos
México

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 09:17:58 -0600, Martin Wessendorf <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
>When I spoke to the Leica people, they said (as best I recollect) that
>development of multi-color STED depended on development of the
>appropriate fluorophores and that there were no hardware improvements
>that were in the immediate pipeline.  That's a bit surprising since (as
>was pointed out to me off-line) Gerald Donnert in Stefan Hell's group
>has already published on multicolor STED (Biophys. J. 2007 92: L67-69L)
>and hints that improvements in lasers and related hardware should make
>implementation easier in the near future.  --In that paper they also
>mention the depletion laser for the far-red fluorphore as not being
>optimal...which again seems odd since far-red STED is what Leica is
>selling.
>
>My aged memory has probably turned the story around 180 degrees, though,
>and I should probably invite the reps from Leica chime in and set the
>story straight!  Maybe they could also comment on how easy (or
>difficult) it is to keep the microscope aligned and the related issue of
>improving depth penetration.
>
>Martin Wessendorf
>
>--
>Martin Wessendorf, Ph.D.                   office: (612) 626-0145
>Assoc Prof, Dept Neuroscience                 lab: (612) 624-2991
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