Business Model and Access to Intellectual Property

The TTA-Group agreement secures access to all intellectual property rights (background or foreground) needed to implement the Time-Triggered Protocol TTP. Every semiconductor manufacturer can enter into a license contract to implement TTP for an unlimited period of time without any restrictions. The TTA-Group itself is not involved in any implementation activities of TTP.

Background and Foreground Intellectual Property

The access to TTP intellectual property is governed and controlled by the TTA-Group steering committee and licensing contracts between the background intellectual property holding company TTTech and semiconductor companies. This secures a fair return on investments undertaken to develop TTP, and fair competition among the semiconductor companies. The commercial terms and conditions are as follows:

• Only semiconductor manufacturers pay license fees based on a market-accepted licensing model.
• No license fees or royalties have to be paid by manufacturers, suppliers, service or support companies or any other company using chips from a licensed semiconductor manufacturer.

If change proposals are incorporated in the specifications, each TTA-Group member grants to all other members a non-exclusive, world-wide, non-transferable, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) for foreground intellectual property to design, develop, produce, use, market or sell semiconductor devices conforming to the specifications.

Chip Intellectual Property Models and Chip Implementations

Chip intellectual property models and chip implementations are not subject to the TTA-Group agreement. Every company is free to design or buy chip intellectual property models based on TTP. However, TTP chip intellectual property models are already available for semiconductor manufacturers. For detailed information please contact TTChip at products@tttech.com.

History of TTP-Related Intellectual Property

During the development of the Time-Triggered Protocol various patents have been filed and granted over the past 20 years. TTP was originally invented by Professor Hermann Kopetz at the Vienna University of Technology. All TTP-related patents have been transferred to a patent holding company named FTS (Fault-Tolerant Systems) Computertechnik GmbH. After the incorporation of TTTech in late 1997 to exploit the time-triggered technology on a commercial basis, FTS has granted licenses (with the right to grant sublicenses) to this TTP intellectual property to TTTech. TTTech has acquired additional intellectual property rights in the area of TTP. All this background intellectual property is now subject to the TTA-Group agreement.