Almost every claim on this website can be checked without asking us. This note explains exactly how — which database, which number, what the result means. If a company tells you its technology is protected but will not give you the publication number, that is the answer to your question.
1. The patents
Start with the publication numbers. Ours are:
- US9364766B2 — United States
- CA2875745C — Canada
- EP2858730B1 — European Patent
- EA029796B1 — Eurasian Patent
- WO2013182708A1 — the PCT international application
- GB201210010D0 — the first filing, 7 June 2012
Paste any of them into Google Patents or Espacenet. Both are free and neither requires an account.
What to look at once you are there
The claims, not the abstract. The abstract describes the idea; the claims define what is actually owned. Claim 1 is the broadest — read it first. Everything after it narrows the scope.
The priority date. On Google Patents it appears under “Priority date”; on Espacenet under “Priority”. Ours is 7 June 2012. This is the date that decides novelty: nothing published anywhere in the world after it can be used to invalidate the claims. In a field that grew as fast as eVTOL did after 2015, an early priority date is the one part of a portfolio that cannot be bought later.
The legal status. Espacenet’s “Legal events” tab is the honest one. Look for maintenance-fee events. A patent that was granted and then lapsed for fees is not the same thing as a patent in force, and companies do not always draw that distinction. We do: our patent page lists the four that are in force and separately lists five that were granted and subsequently lapsed for renewal fees, plus one Indian application that is still an application.
The family. “Worldwide applications” on Google Patents shows every jurisdiction the same invention was filed in, with a colour code for status. This is where “50+ jurisdictions” either holds up or does not.
2. The company
B-Technology Sp. z o.o. is a Polish limited liability company. Its registration numbers are public:
- KRS 0000616005 — the National Court Register entry. Searchable free at the Ministry of Justice register.
- NIP 5170375003 — tax identification number.
- REGON 364334549 — the statistical register, searchable in the GUS database.
The KRS entry shows the registered office, the founding date, the management board and the share capital. It is the primary source; anything a company profile page says that contradicts the register is wrong, including ours.
3. The recognition
DARPA UAVForge Challenge 2012. Witold Mielniczek was part of Team HALO, the winning entry, at the University of Southampton. The result is documented in peer-reviewed literature rather than only in a press release: HALO the Winning Entry to the DARPA UAVForge Challenge 2012, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-39238-2_20. A second paper on the selection process appeared at IEEE SSRR 2012, DOI 10.1109/SSRR.2012.6523914. Both DOIs resolve.
eVTOL.news. The company profile sits in the directory maintained by the Vertical Flight Society — a technical society, not a listings site. It indexes aircraft, not announcements.
GoAERO Prize. Team BECCARII is a finalist; the Fly-Off takes place at NASA Ames, Moffett Federal Airfield. Competition standings are published by the organiser, not by us.
4. What you cannot verify yet — and we say so
This is the part most companies leave out, so here it is plainly.
Performance figures are not published on this site. Top speed, flight range and thrust figures from an earlier project phase are under revision. We would rather publish nothing than publish a number a journalist repeats and we later have to correct. When they are confirmed, they will appear on the fact sheet and in the structured data at the same time.
The distinction between demonstrated and designed. A 1:3-scale prototype flies and performs full manoeuvres — vertical take-off and landing, flight, driving on composite tracks, and the transition between ground and air. The sealed amphibious hull in operational use, the coaxial propeller arrangement of the production configuration and the full-scale rescue cabin are part of the design, not of the demonstration. The fact sheet states which is which.
Why we publish this
Two reasons, both practical. Journalists and analysts spend most of their time trying to work out which claims in a press pack are load-bearing; handing over the numbers saves everyone the round trip. And a claim that resolves to a primary source survives being repeated — by a person or by a language model — in a way that an adjective does not.
If you check something and find a discrepancy between what a register says and what this site says, write to ceo@beccarii.com. The register wins and we will correct the page.