Intellectual Property
Patents, Trademarks and Trade Secrets.
We own hundreds of active patent families including patents and applications registered or filed in Israel, the United States, the European Patent Office and other jurisdictions. We also hold dozens of living trademark families relating to specific products. A significant part of our intellectual property assets relates to unique applications of advanced software-based technologies. Some of these applications are protected by patents, and others are considered as our trade secrets and proprietary information. We take a number of measures to safeguard our intellectual property against infringement as well as to avoid infringement of other parties’ intellectual property.
Governmental Customers’ Rights in Data.
The IMOD usually retains specific rights to technologies and inventions resulting from our performance under contracts for end use by the IMOD or the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). This generally includes the right to disclose the information to third parties, including other defense contractors that may be our competitors. When the IMOD funds research and development, it usually acquires rights in the data developed under such funding. We often may retain a non-exclusive license for such inventions. The Israeli government usually is entitled to receive royalties on export sales in relation to sales resulting from government financed development. However, if only the product is purchased without development effort, we normally retain the principal rights to the technology. Sales of our products to the U.S. government and some other customers are subject to similar conditions. Subject to applicable law, regulations and contract requirements, we attempt to maintain our intellectual property rights and provide customers with the right to use the technology only for the specific project under contract.
Licensing.
There are relatively few cases where we manufacture under license. Such licenses typically apply to the use of technologies that are the result of collaboration with academic institutions or where we are manufacturing another company’s product in accordance with that company’s specifications. In such cases, the licensor typically is entitled to royalties or other types of compensation. In some cases where we have acquired business lines we obtain a royalty-free license to use the applicable technology for specified applications. We also obtain licenses to use software tools in our engineering and development activities and utilize open source software licenses in projects where such use is appropriate. Occasionally, we license parts of our intellectual property to customers or business partners as part of the requirements of a particular contract. We also sometimes license technology to other companies for specific purposes or markets, such as the right to manufacture certain components of our products or the right to use certain of our intellectual property relating to operation and adaptation of our training and simulation systems. Due to the growing trend of a number of governments requiring us to work with their local industries, such licensing has become more prevalent.