Common use of Are Robots here? Clause in Contracts

Are Robots here?. In 2004 ▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ [2] predicted that robots would be as pervasive as elec- tronic mail and the world wide web by approximately 2019. In 2013, one can 5 ▇▇▇▇://▇▇▇.▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.▇▇▇/ [accessed: 08/20/2013] already see a trend towards this vision becoming a reality as robots have be- come part of a consumer entertainment market (for example the Sony AIBO [1]). They are also being deployed in hospitals, museums [6] and in households [3]. The largest market for robotic applications is, however, still in manufacturing. According to the IFR world robotics statistics6, the market value for industrial robots is estimated to be US$ 8.5 billion ”without cost of software, peripherals and systems engineering.” Including these costs, the market value is estimated to be US$ 25.5 billion. In contrast, the professional service robotics market is estimated to be US$ 3.6 billion and the service robotics market for personal and domestic use is estimated to be US$ 636 million, according to the statistics of the IFR world robotics7. If robots are to become even more prominent in all these areas, there are a number of developments which need to accompany the growth in market share. The market pull and the research push need to accompany each other. Steels [11] notes that in the early 1980s one could notice the advent of a change in artificial intelligence with the dawn of an application driven research agenda which was accompanied by huge conferences, venture capital and the increased founding of spin-off companies. This justifies increased research efforts in a technology related field which are sometimes questioned due to the double-boom pattern [10], which accounts for the lag between a science-push and a market-pull in technological fields. One of the main goals of ECHORD is to support a decrease in this lag by facilitating a productive exchange between industry and academia.