Licensing

Torotrak’s flexible approach to licensing allows customers to select from a range of different licence-based options to best suit their needs. In all cases, our engineers work closely with the customer to ensure that our full-toroidal traction drive transmission technology is applied to deliver optimum performance and efficiency in the customer’s product.

Torotrak owns in excess of 400 patents relating to its toroidal technology, all of which are available for our customers to use under licence to develop greener, highly efficient and competitive products. Typical licensees include vehicle OEMs and tier-1 suppliers, each of whom benefit from access to our extensive research and development capability, and our applications engineering skills.

Types of licence:

Full licence (licensee leading product development)

Purchasing a full licence from Torotrak entitles our customers to receive a formal programme of technology transfer, comprising training and the provision of specialist design tools, prior to the start of product development, together with the rights to design, develop, manufacture and sell products that incorporate Torotrak’s full-toroidal technology and intellectual property.

Although the licensee normally attains an early capability to design and develop its own applications incorporating Torotrak’s technology, Torotrak supports these customers with provision of expertise and applications engineering support as required under engineering consultancy terms.

A licensee is normally licensed to use Torotrak’s technology and intellectual property in a specified field of product or application for an agreed term. Typically, a royalty payment is made to Torotrak for each product (incorporating Torotrak’s technology) made and sold, with royalty rates being dependent upon the type of product, market and territory included in the licence and the volume of sales generated.

Full licence (Torotrak providing turn-key engineering support)

As a variation on the conventional full-licence route, Torotrak can also work with its licensees to provide them with a full turn-key engineering design and development capability, generating bespoke transmission designs engineered specifically for a customer’s particular application. Given a customer’s specification, Torotrak’s design and development team can undertake a complete project - from the initial stage of concept design through to delivery of a calibrated vehicle incorporating its full-toroidal traction drive technology.

In these circumstances, technology transfer is usually staged across a longer period of time so that the licensee is fully proficient in all aspects of Torotrak’s technology prior to the start of series manufacture of products that incorporate the company’s technology.

Manufacturing and sales licence (customised applications)

Torotrak can offer transmission solutions based upon standardised variator modules. The use of an existing variator design can often reduce the time to market for a new transmission unit, as well as minimizing product development and capital investment costs. Time required varies greatly depending on the application and the customer's requirements.

Technology transfer (provided to all licensees)

All licensees are provided with appropriately tailored programmes of technology transfer, so that the customer gains proficiency in applying Torotrak’s technology and intellectual property in its licensed field of application. Technology transfer consists of formal training, partly on a generic basis but partly based on the customer’s intended products and applications, and includes the provision of specialist design tools as developed by Torotrak to assist with transmission design and optimisation.