It’s also not fair to buy a thing for a cheaper price because the IP rights aren’t included, then try to cut out the IP holder when things need fixing. The company bid a low initial price betting they would get additional revenue on spare parts and change orders later.

Finally, the military has incredible leverage at the start of a program that they could use better. Companies will include IP rights if the alternative is not getting a contract at all. Once the piece of equipment is fielded, leverage returns to the company.

You have to make the change and they are bound by funds appropriated and you have to deliver. The way this works out a good number of times is on the back end when you work together in a next phase to bill a 10k custom hammer as part of a maintenance and support contract . The reality is not that the hammer costs 10k but as a contractor you are being compensated for 10k of out of scope work you had to do in a prior phase.

Again this is almost certainly not about right to repair and more about fix the way these projects are budgeted and scoped.

Just my two cents here.

The idea of having private firms try to build their interpretation of what the Army or Air Force wants seems redundant and inefficient. And then you have to bury the cost of failed designs in the contracts you do win, or sell them designs to other countries that end up using them against us after a couple coups.