Quote:
Originally Posted by Christ
I wonder if Toyota will offer to buy the technology at this point, as opposed to continuously paying the settlements?
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I was thinking the exact same thing about Toyota buying the technology at an agreeable rate but how do you put a price on something that is already being used...the horse is already out of the barn. And why at this point would Toyota pay more than they need to for technology that is already "theirs"...it's already in their cars.
If Toyota had to pay $4+ million in 2005 and has to do the same in 2010 and again in 2015 eventually the next best technology will be available and Toyota will have basically rented Paice's patented system for $15-20 million while they profited well beyond that over those years. Why would Toyota ever agree to this when they are paying pennies while making dollars? Surely, Paice could have sold their CVT technology for more than $15-20 million to an aggressive automaker before Toyota began using it. Paice gets the shaft in this one.
There is no question Toyota is not going to stop using the Paice technology...in fact...they have already improved on it so much they are already selling it to other companies (example: GM's interest in using Toyota CVT technology in their own cars).
The only security for Toyota in this situation is their foreign status. If they were a US based company Toyota would never have gotten away with this for so long...it would have been squashed before a single car with Paice technology was produced.