[PRCo] Re: Russian___PCCs

[Boris Cefer]

Yes, originally there was a license agreement which required Tatra (not
actually Tatra or CKD; there was a KOVO corporation which played a role of a
"national umbrella" over this business) to pay license fee for each set of
trucks. Actually, the only money that TRC saw from the Czechoslovakian party
was $10,000 for a pile of drawings (and reportedly some sample parts) handed
in 1948. Absolutely no fees paid!
There are some documents on that, but these are rather fragments of
information and they make the question rather foggy than putting light on
it. We don't know when the licence agreement ended validity. No clue.

B

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 1:15 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Russian___PCCs


> Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee =  PCC.    The
> design committee was succeeded by Transit Research Corporation, which
> held the patents and issued licenses in exchange for royalties.   You
> paid a royalty, you could buy a car.   Most foreign cars were also
> licensed.   Windsor Davis, the TRC's patent attorney was given the
> rights to the patents as his pension when the TRC was dissolved.   It
> was thus up to Davis to collect from the foreign builders if he
> wanted food on his table.   The U. S. S. R. probably got the PCC the
> same way they got most anything else ... by copying it.    However,
> there were Tatra cars in Russia and Tatra was licensed to build cars
> (to the best of my knowledge).