ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,269,835, issued on April 8.

"Preparation method for and application of chiral spirocyclic phosphine-nitrogen-phosphine tridentate ligand iridium catalyst thereof" was invented by Qilin Zhou (Tianjin, China), Fenghua Zhang (Tianjin, China), Jianhua Xie (Tianjin, China) and Lixin Wang (Tianjin, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to a preparation method for and an application of a chiral spirocyclic phosphine-nitrogen-phosphine tridentate ligand SpiroPNP and an iridium catalyst Ir-SpiroPNP thereof. The chiral spirocyclic phosphine-nitrogen-phosphine tridentate ligand is a compound represented by formula I, or...