ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,364,772, issued on July 22, was assigned to NANONICA S.A. (Lugano, Switzerland).

"Conjugates comprising nanoparticles coated with platinum derivatives through sulfonyl or phosphonyl-containing linkers" was invented by Joan Comenge Farre (Barcelona, Spain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to conjugates having colloidal stability in a medium which comprises a nanoparticle NP, a plurality of linkers of formula (II) comprising a sulfonyl moiety or a phosphonyl moiety as defined herein, and a plurality of groups A attached to the linkers, wherein: NP is a gold, silver or platinum nanoparticle; with the condition tha...