Wapin bridge patent

[Robert Scott]

Carl Meyer asked:

 >>>>
When I first heard about Wapin, my first reaction was. $325 to teach me how
to drill a straight hole?  And I have to agree not to tell anybody else?  I
remember Baldwin (a privately owned company) offering to let techs use their
two patents (plate mounting and accujust hitch pins) for free.  Now here is
the U of Cincinnati ( a publicly funded organization) wanting to profit on a
patent.
<<<<

The whole purpose of a patent is to reward inventors for disclosing
the details that they might otherwise choose to keep secret.  If you want
to see the information in the patent, go to

http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/srchnum.htm

and enter patent number 6,100,457 for the Wapin patent.

I'm not sure of the details of the agreement, but isn't it true that if
you pay the one-time fee of $325 you get unlimited license to perform
as many Wapin installations as you wish?  (Plus you get the training,
which is worth something too.)  If this is indeed the case then the
arrangement sounds quite fair to me.  Many patent licenses include a
royalty for each individual use.

-Robert Scott
  Detroit-Windsor Chapter