UTEK completed a technology transfer deal in May 1998 with Lexon Inc., a Tulsa, Okla., company headed by Gifford M. Mabie Jr. It got 1 million shares of stock in Lexon (formerly OTCBB: LXXN) in return for the license to the blood-screening kit used for cancer detection.

Six months later, UTEK entered into a strategic alliance with Maxxon Inc., (Pink Sheets: MXON), another Mabie company that was developing a retractable safety syringe. Maxxon agreed to pay 500,000 shares for help in finding additional new technology.

In 1999, UTEK transferred technology to three other Mabie companies in Tulsa. It provided Centrex Inc. (OTCBB: CNEXE) with technology for confirming the presence of E. coli bacteria and the cryptosporidium parasite in water. UTEK provided Image Analysis Inc. with technology for adding color to Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans. It also provided Nucor Enterprises Inc., later renamed Nubar Enterprises, with the license for a new carbon-fiber rebar that could be used in bridges, buildings and roads.
In the third quarter of 2002, three of the Mabie companies -- Lexon, Inc., Image Analysis, Inc., and Centrex, Inc. – received notices that certain licenses they held were being terminated for failure to develop the technology or failure to pay the specified royalties.

At the time, UTEK valued its stake in Image Analysis, Inc. at roughly $1.3 million and noted that the company’s failure to preserve the license would have a material negative impact on UTEK’s financial condition and operating results. UTEK has since listed the shares as having no value.

In December 2002 the SEC filed a fraud complaint against Maxxon, Mabie and two other company insiders, alleging that they made false and misleading statements about the company’s “safety syringe’’ and collected more than $1.5 million from stock sold at inflated prices. The SEC said the misleading statements were issued during two periods, from 1997 through 1999 and from February 2002 to July 2002.

A federal jury found in 2004 that Maxxon and Mabie had engaged in securities fraud. A judge last year ordered Mabie to pay more than $1 million in disgorgement and penalties, barred him from serving as an officer or director of any public company for five years and barred him from participating in any penny stock offerings. Maxxon and Mabie challenged the verdict, but a federal appeals court upheld it earlier this month.