Well, Rick, I have in deed some collywobbles reading about this commitment of POET. I can see that their plan is not to sell off their IP, but to develope the core markets for their technology first, in their own "institute of integrated photonics".

They plan to invest a lot of money in R&D, which I like a lot. But on the other hand I do not know how they want to finance all that. The EDB fund is a help, but the big part has to be financed by POET.

So my hope is that there is a well-wrought plan behind it, and pending NRE or additional commitments of third parties.  

I can stay positive, because my own R&D experiance is telling me that governmental organisations not only doublecheck the project and its feasibility using their best consultants and specialists. They are also taking a close look on the financing plan. In this case of POET they will not rely on promisses, future placements and financial injections. There must be hard figures, and in access - my opnion - more then one signed commitment from a third party -all for sure under NDAs.

Further- about NDAs and disclosure: Some years ago I had a discussion with Eileen about this topic. In deed, if a company can show to financial authorities that the publication of even core financial facts can harm their business and "shareholder value", a lot of facts like names of partners, contracts dealing with future payents or core R&D developements - can stay hidden. In our case POET has to consult TSX. They then can decide which material info - for a limited time - does not have to be disclosed.

As a reasonable example: Let us say a company is developing core weapon technology for the US army: In such a case payments, contracts and even the fact that there is a develoment - can stay hidden for a long time.