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Originally Posted by Beatmaster  Yeah i did see this on some news channel it was kinda a big thing.
Needless to say the US is one of the biggest exporters, but there are much smaller nations who are selling and trading in comparison to the US some pretty big deals, here a brief top 20 :
1. USA
2. Russia
3. Germany
4. France
5. United Kingdom
6. Netherlands
7. China
8. Spain
9. Italy
10. Sweden
11. Israel
12. Ukraine
13. Switzerland
14. Canada
15. South Africa
16. South Korea
17. Poland
18. Belgium
19. Norway
20. Brazil
Source: sipri.org
And what comes to my attention here is that specially the EU is selling alot based up the fact that several EU nations are ranked in the top 20.
Now the thing is alot of the hardware that the EU uses, produces and design are for the biggest part a co-op with some other nations and to a large degree connected to the US military hardware industry right?
Now as i said and some others i am no expert but could it be that lets say for example the Netherlands or Germany uses the patriot system (Which they do atm) and they would like to design a new system called super patriot (More accurate, more payload and bla bla just a example) based upon the old patriot system, would that mean that they have to payoff the IP rights? or pay royalties? in order to gain full ownership of it?
Maybe a weard example here but i am in the music industry myself, if a artist creates a song and this song is licensed then by paying royalties and fees (For editing, reproduction and so on) a third person could "buy" the full right about that particular song without harming the intellect property of the "soul" creator.
So this new person could do literally everything with the song he wants while the soul creator remains full owner (however he gave away the right to do what ever the "third" person wants to do with the song as long the "third" person pays the royalties,fees and a percentage of the exploitation rights)
Now having that said most EU hardware is as i said based upon US or shared US/EU tech but could it be that the US has "sold" the rights to some nations?
Because honestly i cannot see that for example the Netherlands rank 6 on the export list....i mean except for sub hardware/software we do not have much to sell lol.
So my guess is that some nations like the Netherlands, Belguim and several others have been given the right to produce and trade hardware freely as long as they pay a fee and such to the IP holder or to the company/government.
Because as others said about the Gripen, EF, Rafale they all contain some US parts.
So either the US has handed out full ownership licenses to some techs or they handed out lease licenses, because for example we all know that the JSF is a direct rival to the Gripen, EF and Rafale so practically the US would be able to sell their JSF at will and block every EF, and Gripen order out there.
Thats called monopoly wich is NOT allowed, and outlawed in international regulations (Made by the US themselfs lol) Not sure if i say it the right way here but ill bet you guys understand what i say.
So my guess is that yes the IP registered nation remains the patent holder and so on, however in light of the greater good and to fullfill all international treaties its reasonable to assume that some sort of licenses will be handed out like they did with the F-16 in the past.
Otherwise WHY would the US allow Germany to sell stock patriots IF the US could sell them them selfs directly keep in mind we are talking about a lot of money here and this is not just one deal, but the top 20 specially the EU listed ones take a huge chunk of the worlds exports and ill bet that the US could use that money themselfs.
So its logical for me to assume that this all is possible by selling rights and licenses otherwise it would not make sense.
Cheers |
Again, I am not an expert so don't hold me to perfection...
I guess the closest example I could think of is the Hawker Beachcraft T6. It is a Pilatus PC9 so I remember reading that HB gives a royalty payment for every sale. But yes, Pilatus is now in effect competing against it's own product....I don't know how it works out because Switzerland is pretty touchy on the whole neutrality thing so if US sells to a country that don't like, do they have a veto? I don't think so, I think Pilatus still gets paid, when you think about it, it is a way for Switzerland to go around it's own severe laws on military equipment exports...
When it comes to using US parts, as far as I know, tough luck if US doesn't want you to sell to a "bad" country....Gripen uses GE F404 so US has a defacto right of refusal...but even if let's say SAAB were to install EJ200, well, does Eurofighter agree to have SAAB compete against them?
You are back to square one, now the EF people can squeeze SAAB...I think SAAB has looked at different radars for Gripen to go around US or European pressure....
It really depends on the country and such, it is really important to look at the contracts (which we don't) and see what is allowed. I think the India MRCA jet fighter deal is really about tech transfer, India I think wanted pretty much "no strings attached"....so could India develop further EF or Rafale and compete against OEM/country of origin? I am guessing yes....
This doesn't just apply on parts, Euro-fighter doesn't have a lot of US parts as far as I know but you need that AMRAAM for BVR, if not, you are buying a very expensive "paperweight",LOL!, I think it is one of the reasons Europeans are developing METEOR with no US assistance so they can sell their own BVR missile with no strings attached....don't forget that not every one has the same AMRAAM, you might get an older or more recent model, depending on how close you are to the US....When it comes to Eurofighter consortium, as far as I know, the 4 countries had a delineated "territory" so you wouldn't have a duplication of effort or 2 sale teams competing against each other, this stuff is worked out at the beginning of these projects....also remember, these are European countries which most of them belong to NATO or have close/common interests, it is unlikely that a European country would just decide to sell to a "bad" country....
I don't know if I would call it a "monopoly", I think it is a different form of "diplomacy"...
