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When reading the wikipedia page I was surprised to learn that: "In 1997, Airtrax Incorporated and several other companies each paid the US Navy $2,500 for right
by cwoebker 8y ago
When reading the wikipedia page I was surprised to learn that: "In 1997, Airtrax Incorporated and several other companies each paid the US Navy $2,500 for rights to the technology, including old drawings of how the motors and controllers worked, to build an omnidirectional forklift truck"
This was more than 20 years ago, but $2,500 seems on the low end for a usage-license. This patent is pretty interesting after all. Does anyone have any knowledge in this area? Is that average for these types of patents, or is the Navy giving it away for cheap to incentivize new innovation?
- saalweachter 8y ago'97 was 25 years after the original patent was filed, so the original patent was well expired. I would guess that what they were buying from the Navy were literally just the implementation notes, because even if the patent covers all of the original, key, patent-able ideas, it can still be a bitch to go from that to an actual working implementation.