Mr. Chalmers H. Goodlin
Chairman and President
The Burnelli Company
7372 N.W. 12th Street
Miami, FL 33126

Dear Mr. Goodlin:

Thank you for providing a copy of your letter of July 9, 1996. In that letter you asked NASA to request that Lockheed Martin negotiate a license agreement with the Burnelli Company. NASA does not have the authority to direct Lockheed Martin to negotiate a license with the Burnelli Company. In addition, after reviewing the information that you have provided, I find no basis for NASA to intervene in this matter on your behalf.

You were advised by Mr. Robert E. Whitehead in his letter to you dated May 5, 1995, that the reason the Burnelli Company was not considered as a candidate for NASA funding for a contract to investigate blended wing-body aircraft configurations was because, to our knowledge, the Burnelli Company did not submit a proposal in response to the NASA solicitation. The same circumstances apply to funding for the X-33. Since you did not respond to the X-33 cooperative agreement notice, you cannot receive any funding for this project.

In addition, you have been advised by my office that NASA will not consider taking a license in U.S. Patent No. 2,586,299 because the patent term for this patent has expired. If you have other U.S. patents that have not yet expired, NASA is willing to consider your offer to take a license in those patents.

Thank you for your interest in NASA.

Sincerely,

[signed]

Edward A. Frankle
General Counsel