This sounds super interesting but my knowledge in this area is too limited to fully get what you're saying.
they're the intellectual equivalent of buying mining rights for $5/acre ... The key is prospecting. You want to look around, get a good idea of how big a particular reserve is, and go for something big.
Could you elaborate on this a little or give an example?
As far as I understand CRADA is "cooperative R&D", so each side contributes to the R&D of some subject. Wikipedia says
"Private corporations participating in a CRADA are allowed to file for patent, and they retain patent rights on inventions developed by the CRADA. The government gets a license to the patents"
So if the govt already gets a license to the patents, and the tech has been developed with defense purposes in mind, how am I going to profit as a private company?
> So if the govt already gets a license to the patents, and the tech has been developed with defense purposes in mind, how am I going to profit as a private company?
Let's break that down a bit...
So the government has patent rights. They'd have to exercise them, which requires product development. Are you aware of the government selling many widgets to citizens? They sell road maintenance, insurance, and security services. But they don't really sell citizens "things".
Companies are savvy. If the government approached you and said "we have this patented tech, we want you to use it in this widget", now that you know about CRADAs, wouldn't you be a bit worried about a lawsuit from the other people who have rights on that patent?
Further, without commercialization, the government has rights on that one thing. They don't have rights on version 2, or even version 1.1.
You mention defense. Why? Are you in the defense business? Dept of Transportation might be better for self-driving cars. DoE or NIST might be better high tech partners. USDA or FDA if your in the food space. Etc.
Ok, I get the patent part. But what I was mostly interested in is how you see CRADAs help companies make money.
To me CRADAs just sound like a vehicle to share R&D costs, which, in most companies, aren't dominating the budget. So they can be a nice help but no game-changer.
However you mentioned "mining rights" and "going for something big", so it sounded like there's another way to look at this, which I was interested to hear about.
they're the intellectual equivalent of buying mining rights for $5/acre ... The key is prospecting. You want to look around, get a good idea of how big a particular reserve is, and go for something big.
Could you elaborate on this a little or give an example?
As far as I understand CRADA is "cooperative R&D", so each side contributes to the R&D of some subject. Wikipedia says
"Private corporations participating in a CRADA are allowed to file for patent, and they retain patent rights on inventions developed by the CRADA. The government gets a license to the patents"
So if the govt already gets a license to the patents, and the tech has been developed with defense purposes in mind, how am I going to profit as a private company?