EADS high-tech licensing initiative on the road to success

• Licence agreements worth €10.5 million signed
• EADS one of the world’s most innovative companies with over 7,200 patents

Munich, 16 September 2010 – The technology transfer and licensing policy pursued by EADS’ Intellectual Property (IP) section is developing most successfully. Licence agreements worth €10.5 million were signed at a trade gathering in Le Bourget near Paris, only a year after the launch of the initiative. A total of eleven companies have participated so far.

“EADS occupies a leading role in the manufacture of high-tech products for the aerospace industry. Many of our technologies can benefit our suppliers as well as companies in other sectors of industry,” said EADS Chief
Technical Officer Dr. Jean Botti. Interested companies have the opportunity to find out about the Group’s technology portfolio at IP conferences and trade fairs. Licensing is an integral element of the Group’s long-term IP strategy.

“High-technology companies need to pay particular attention to intellectual property rights in a global business environment,” added Wulf Höflich, the Group's Chief Intellectual Property Officer. With a portfolio of more than 7,200 inventions, EADS is among the world’s most innovative companies.

The aim of the new corporate policy is to make particularly attractive technologies available to suppliers and companies both inside and outside the aerospace industry by granting patent licences. EADS Technology
Licensing provides the opportunity for interested companies to enhance their own products by using complementary technologies, or to make use of such technologies to develop innovative new products and capture new markets.

By way of illustration, EADS presented state-of-the-art composite, manufacturing, communication infrastructure, security and environment- friendly technologies that are used at Airbus, Eurocopter and throughout EADS and have now been made available for commercial applications. Today, for example, many wind turbines are manufactured using an efficient fibre-composite construction method that was originally developed at the EADS research facilities for aircraft construction



(press release)