Of course, but I bet you still can't get them.  I think
the licensing fee was to the tune of $200K, so your cost
would be $200 + cost of device each for 1000 of them.  And I
bet licensee's (like Ford) are prohibited from selling large
quantities to 3rd parties by the licensing agreement..  Have
to question their motivations and sanity, since there's
enough interest floating around that they'd obviously make
more money if they made the prices more reasonable and sold
the hell out of them.  But AFAIR, patent laws only say you
have to put the idea to commercial use, not do it in a way
that makes the most business sense.
  Sometimes the patent system plainly falls on it's ass.  Go
to http://www.levitron.com/ and read about some really
stupid patent stuff sometime.  Cool device as well.  I think
the patent office people must come from the same employee
pool as postal workers.  Hmm, postal workers must at least
be able to operate firearms, so I guess they may even have
the intellectual edge..
  In all fairness, the system is really the problem, you
have judges and other semi-legal types having to make
decisions they aren't qualified to evaluate really.  No
wonder Microchip thinks it makes sense to sue everybody..


Adam Davis wrote:
>
> I wonder if I placed an order for a few thousand, would there be a market to
> resell them in smaller quantites?  one-offs and such?
>