Williams Advanced Materials Inc. to be Granted European Patent for Sil-X(TM) DVD Production Alloy

In making this announcement, WAM's President, Richard Sager,commented, "We are extremely pleased to receive notification that theSil-X(TM) patent is about to be granted in Europe. Our introduction ofthis new and innovative material early in 2003 helped many replicatorsand the DVD industry as a whole achieve significant cost savings.Sil-X(TM) eliminated license fees and more costly precious metalconstituents commonly associated with competitors' products. Moreover,we are encouraged by recent test results that the Sil-X(TM)-basedfamily of products will continue as a low cost material of choice fornext generation technology such as Blue Disc (BD)."

Sil-X(TM) has been used by nearly all of the world's leading DVDmanufacturers as a raw material critical to minimizing Cost per Disc(CPD) and enhancing performance characteristics of DVD's. WAM'sleadership position as a raw material supplier, its extensiveexperience in precious metals, its collaborative research anddevelopment efforts with key customers and its commitment to customersupport led to the discovery and refinement of this alloy.

Headquartered in Buffalo, New York, WAM manufactures precious,non-precious and specialty metal products at facilities in New York,California and Asia, and provides precision cleaning andreconditioning services for physical vapor deposition customers atfacilities in the U.S. and Ireland. Major markets for WAM's productsinclude magnetic and optical data storage, the wireless,semiconductor, photonic and hybrid segments of the microelectronicsmarkets.

WAM's parent company, Brush Engineered Materials Inc. (NYSE:BW) isheadquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The Company, through itswholly-owned subsidiaries, supplies worldwide markets with berylliumproducts, alloy products, electronic products, precious metalproducts, and engineered material systems.