Commercialization of a masonry tool designed in a senior-capstone class through a licensing agreement

Many seemingly viable products are designed and built in MIT Mechanical Engineering's senior capstone design class, 2.009, but a small fraction make it to real markets. The 2017 2.009 Orange Team is commercializing their product through the company Rhino Tools and Equipment (RTE). The product, a rotary hammer attachment that guides the chisel bit as it moves within a mortar joint, was designed with the aim of improving the repointing work done by masons on brick exteriors. Given the real constraints on a team of soon-to-be graduating students and analysis of the market and the product, a licensing business model was chosen. The licensing business model is heavily reliant on intellectual property. Thus, an extensive prior art search was carried out to determine the product's novelty. By this analysis the product is patentable. Cash flows were projected to determine a fair allocation of economic benefit in a licensing agreement; RTE should expect to receive about 4.5% royalty on revenue. Moving forward, RTE should pursue funding to complete the patent process as well as a pilot program with masons, and continue to develop its connections within the tool industry.

Name thesis:degree_name

Bachelor

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Rudoltz, Hannah R.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Warren Seering.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122879

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122879