By Andy Choi
GeckoSystems, developer of mobile service robots (MSR's), made an announcement regarding partnering with a Japanese robot company called ifoo Co. to develop a low cost robot arm. The jointly developed robotic arm is intended for mobile service robots and light industrial use.
Martin Spencer, President and CEO, GeckoSystems Intl. Corp said that the company had worked over ten years to find a Japanese partner with sufficient interest to secure appropriate legal and enforceable protection in both Japan and the U.S. to enable them to fully disclose their trade secrets to them.
Mr Spencer gave full credit to Mr. Hajime Yasumatsu's (Chairman, Yasu, Inc.) tenacity and hard work in achieving this noteworthy milestone. He was very pleased to announce the R&D collaboration with ifoo.
"We are very pleased to announce our R&D collaboration with ifoo. We have worked for over ten years to find a Japanese partner with sufficient interest to secure appropriate legal and enforceable protection, not only in the U.S., but also in Japan, to enable us to fully disclose our Company Confidential trade secrets to them. We give full credit to Mr. Hajime Yasumatsu's (Chairman, Yasu, Inc.) tenacity and hard work in achieving this noteworthy milestone," observed Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
"As we stated in mid-September, not only does ifoo have interest in marketing a commercial security robot in Japan fundamentally based on GeckoSystems' suite of proprietary technologies, they are also very interested in jointly developing a low cost four Degree of Freedom (DOF) robot arm suitable for not only mobile service robots, but also for light industrial use. The CareBot will have two arms, one on each shoulder. The light industrial robot market may be very large in and of itself. We will use our core competencies in software development to reduce the mechanical costs of this new arm.
"I believe their interest in us is due to not only our advanced GeckoSavant(TM) architecture, but also the reality that we have a complete multitasking personal assistant robot, the CareBot. We continue to expect technology-licensing revenues, primarily software, to precede revenues from product manufacturing and sales. Now ifoo and GeckoSystems are collaborating on the development of a four DOF low cost robot arm. With the internationally enforceable NDA now in place, GeckoSystems can prudently provide those Company Confidential design concepts and specifications to ifoo and still retain all the Company's patent opportunities.
"Further, ifoo is in discussions with a significant Japanese customer requiring several hundred commercial security mobile robots. GeckoSystems has already provided conceptual specifications and artist's concept drawings to support that sales and marketing activity by ifoo.