So Many AR-18 Derivatives: How Come? What About Armalite's Patents? 

Thanks for your kind words! It really depends on the patent - some of them can be very difficult to get around indeed, whereas others (like those in the video) are trivial. Depends hugely on the prior art and the skill of the drafter, both of which are issues here!!!

It comes down to the entire operation not giving much of a shit because they were told they were out on their arse once the project was done.

I saw a challenge to a Provisional Patent for a solvent-proof dressing from 3M. They described how they produced an alleged solvent-proof dressing on an ironing table. If they were already selling that and ìt worked there would have been no call to make a dressing which did work but they had the market. It wasn't going to change.

According to Jim Sullivan, it's completely on the design and production team at Royal Ordnance. Here's a snippet of the interview I still have saved: "I went over to Royal Ordnance, Nottingham; just short-term stuff. Looked at the British SA-80 program. It was at the time they were shutting down RSAF and Enfield. They had already switched all the manufacturing to Nottingham. There wasn't all that much to my involvement. They asked me to go over there and take a look at it, I did and I told them my views on the gun, and they got angry and that was the end of it. From what I saw, everything about it was wrong. For instance, they were using an M16 type bolt and not making it right. In manufacturing it, first you drill a hole for the firing pin. Once that hole is there, everything centers on that hole. You turn the outside, you cut the slots and everything else. They didn't do that. They cut all the outside first, then tried to drill the hole for the firing pin in the center. It wasn't "true." Then they found out you can't drill a hole that way, holes go off this way and that way and aren't centered. To solve that, what they did was mess with the firing pin tip. The firing pin has a nice, respectable diameter for most of its length until the front. Instead of a tapered firing pin so that it's good and strong, they just narrowed it down, and they had the thing about a half-inch long, and just a sixteenth inch in diameter. Another thing was the magazine well. It's a sheet metal receiver, and the magazine well is sheet metal, but it has to be welded on. That's fine. But the sheet metal stamping for the magazine well, they stamp the slot, the little hole, the slot for the magazine latch, they stamped it in there, and then they weld it on. I mean, sure, you save an operation because you can stamp the hole instead of machining it, but no two latch positions on any guns are precisely the same. Their magazines on some of the guns were jammed up and the bolt couldn't move 'cause the magazines were stuck in there on some guns. On other guns it was too low, wasn't feeding properly. They didn't fix this stuff, it just went on and on like that. They'd hold plus or minus one-thousandth, completely unrealistic tolerances, which nobody could make the parts to. The firing on that trip when I went over there was still done at the only range they had, which was still at RSAF Enfield. One of the things you do to test is you load up a mag, put it up in the rifle, you fire a shot and let the thing cycle and chamber the next round, and then instead of firing that next round, you hand extract it and look for scratches on it. When I did this test, it was just scratched all to hell. They weren't up on that. The back end of the lugs, you've got to carefully smooth off that corner. These were just raw. It was just cutting the cartridges. I don't know why they weren't getting split cases from that. Maybe they were."

I wish someone would try again. I'm not interested in short-strokes pistons. But I'd like more variety and not just ARs and AKs in my safe

@@johnharker7194 You need to find a guy known as Doc a DMC Delorean, some radioactive material and something called a flux capacitor. Set the panel on the dashboard for the 9:00 am 1st of January 1986. 😂

And a STANAG magwell, which fixed the main gripe I have with the AR18😊

Will the Type 20 be a better rifle?

@@Joshua_N-A it looks promising. first the wobbly crumbling handguard is made better. second, the selector switch isnt a fully rotating thing (you should see how they train with it) and is quicker to manipulate. also compounding on point #2, the elimination of the burst fire mechanism would save weight. adjustable stock and ambidextrous controls are more inclusive to the female soldiers and lefties

Glad you like it! I was just going to use the title card (booooring), then had a moment of inspiration :)

Nowadays everyone uses a cover page with bibliographic data, the abstract, and a small version of the most-relevant figure.

I loved shooting Ian's at desert brutality 2021, it was awesome indeed! And thanks for the tip! 😎

Except the AR-18 actually worked unlike the original model SA-80/L85A1.

@@Procket12 the SA-80 worked absolutely fine..... As long as one went to war in a climate controlled clean room.

I don't see how you get a decent scope of protection here, particularly with the US "salami slice" approach to obviousness

*AR-15

@@Hosenfuhrer the only real difference between an AR-15 and AR-18 is the metal stamping, so I guess you're kinda right.

@@RaDeus87 They are adopting Sako-built AR-15 variants. The gas system may be AR-18 gas system though.

@@RaDeus87 AR18 uses a pair of bolt carrier guide rails with concentric springs around each rail, and doesn't have the AR15's semi direct gas impingement bolt.

​@@RaDeus87 that's wrong

Patents can give more general protection than copyrights, but it depends on how innovative the invention is. In my line of work (software development), we can both patent and copyright our work. We can patent the general idea or pipeline of the program, but the copyright covers the code specifically, so it's much easier to subvert the copyright.

The odd specification of materials and methods for even the fire controls made me thinking, was this really an oversight or did they aim to protect what they saw as best practice for manufacturing meaning that while copies could be made with some workarounds, mass production would either be a lot more expensive and/or result in inferior products, thus giving Armalilte a distinct competitive advantage?

@@johanmetreus1268 I think you have a classic example of what's referred to in the business as quote the "least patentable unit". My guess is that with the issues of obviousness, this was the only way they could get a patent. I'd have to look at the prosecution history in order to figure it all out. Basically, they wanted to put something out there that would scare off the more cautious, but wouldn't really be assertable against the bold.

A strange thing to understand, given that the materials had indeed been used before, and the bolt is 7 lugs on an 8 pitch, identical to an AR-15.

You can go even further back to the Fosbery shotgun.

It doesn't even stop that, no guarantees that pressed trigger components would work out cheaper

no it's not, tho it is a magnificent example of why you need a law degree to give legal advice

It was all pretty much figured out in the very early 20th century.

Duuuurrr wonder why

Yup. Things that work, work.

Same reason almost all internal combustion engines follow one of a few basic overall patterns. Mechanical engineering is a remarkably Darwinian process. Most stupid ideas die out (albeit are often brought back from the grave, like gas delayed blowback), and only the good ideas remain in widespread use. For example, I cannot recall a modern (post WWII) long recoil weapon of any note that *isn't* a niche application (like a handful of heavy weapons, and the Lynx .50BMG rifle.) Bevause long recoil is a really dumb idea for most purposes (although it makes it very easy to ensure safe opening pressures, which is why it gets used on several "big boomers".)

It's a piston-driven AR-15-style bolt head in a carrier running on rails.

@@BlokeontheRange Thanks! so if they had kept the 3 lug bolt of the first 3 (of 7) prototypes it would have been called an AK derivative instead.

Nah, a Leader T2 has a polygonal 3-lug bolt that is clearly still an AR-18 derivative. AK's run on grooves in the receiver, have anti-pre-rotation and long stroke gas pistons. Admittedly edge cases can get difficult, but I know one when I see one...

@@BlokeontheRange The moving part in the AR18 gas sytem hits the bolt carrier, while the moving part in the AUG hits a guide rod that is attached to the carrier. Not that similar to a lay person like me. And the "rails" the AUG: the carrier itself doen't run on any rails, the carriers two guide rods run in cylinders of the "upper" receiverpart if i remember correct. (The two rods in the stock are only compressing the recoil springs in both guide rods, not providing any "railing". Maybe i am interpreting the word rails wrong as a non native english speaker but are cylinders rails? (But then a 4cylinder engine would be called a 4rail engine) Oh, and the AUG has a "prerotation prevention" (if i understand what that term means correct). It's a thin sheetmetal thing that interfaces with the rear of the bolthead until it is in battery. (I remember that one from the disassembling as it was the reason to turn the bolt over to have a better way of holding it and one of the few seperate parts we would disassemble the bolt carrier into)

Rods are a type of rail, yes. But anyway, look inside an AK and look inside an AUG and the difference should be come quite clear :)

Nope, if it's "intended to be replicated" don't spend a fortune patenting it, just publish a how-to... And you don't make money by setting yourself up to be copied.

Armalite wasn't set up for mass production it was basically a subsidiary firearms design bureau of the Fairchild aircraft company. They made their money from licensing or selling their designs to be produced by other manufacturing companies. As someone else pointed out the 7 lug rotating bolt was from Melvin Johnson's rifle design, the three part gas piston design was a direct copy of Fedor Tokarev's SVT rifle. The only thing that was really unique was at the time was the extensive use of stamped sheet metal in it's construction and the low cost per unit. The fact that it had US Patent and a long number stamped on the side would of deterred many from attempting to copy it but once it was copied by one company it was open season to all the rest. The reason it has become such a dominant design is that it is a simple but effective design that requires minimal machining, the tooling requirements are low and the cost per unit is low. Each manufacturer tweaks the basic design to match their particular production facility but once it's all set up they can churn them out in the hundreds of thousands at minimal cost. The only difficulty they now have is securing military contracts and avoiding any export restrictions.

Which one? The SAR-80? The AR-18 itself is a brilliant rifle but is a bit flimsy for military use, the SAR is better on that front.

Meh, a Supplementary Protection Certificate only adds another 5 years, and then only in very specific pharma cases. And much of the patent protection time is gone by the time the drug gets to market anyway.

Yes, but it's way after patent expiry.

G36 is well after the expiry of the patent so I didn't mention it.

And what about Bushmaster ACR ? Is it derivative of AR18 ?

@@danielbrstak5730 of course it is, uses the same short-stroke gas system as AR-18

Err, the key thing of the AR-10 was its gas system. A huge deal. That's what Colt bought.

The AR-15 is so little copied in comparison to the AR-18? Are you really sure about that? Everyone and his dog makes an AR-15 variant! Even the Russians and the Chinese! Here's an out of date list of AR-15 manufacturers that was even incomplete when it was compiled in 2015, and the number of manufacturers has only got bigger since... 1 2 Vets Arms Company, LLC 2 Adams Arms 3 ADCOR Defence 4 Addax 5 ADEQ Firearms Company 6 Advanced Defense Sysems (ADS) 7 Aeroprecision 8 AGP Arms 9 Alberta Tactical Rifle Supply 10 Alexander Arms 11 All Weapons One 12 Allstar Tactical LLC 13 Alpha Shooting Sports 14 Ambush Firearms 15 Ameetech* 16 American Precision Arms 17 American Spirit Arms 18 American Tacitcal Imports (ATI) 19 American Weapon Systems 20 Anderson Manufacturing 21 Anvil Arms* 22 AR 15 Plus 23 AR Permformance 24 AR15 Depot 25 AR15.com Armament Rifle 26 AR57 Center 27 Ardel Engineering (AE) 28 Ares Arms LLC. 29 Ares Defense 30 Arizona Armory (AZ) 31 Armalite 32 Armitage International LTD 33 ARMS LLC 34 Arm's Tech LTD 35 Astra Arms 36 ATT Tactical 37 AXTS Weapons 38 Balimoy 39 Barnes Precision 40 Barret Firearms Manufacturing 41 Bartlett Enterprises 42 Battle Born Rifles 43 Battle Rifle Company 44 Bazooka Brothers Manufacturing 45 Black Dawn 46 Black Diamond SOCOM Mfg. 47 Black Gold custom Arms 48 Black Heart International 49 Black Hole Weaponry 50 Black Rain 51 Black Scorpion Firearms 52 Black Weapons Armory 53 Blackthorne 54 BMG Inc 55 Bohica Arms 56 Bradley Arms 57 Branch Custom Weaponry 58 Bravo Company Manufacturing (BCM) 59 Bushmaster Firearms International 60 C3 Defense 61 Cavalry Arms* 62 Centurion Arms 63 Centurion Tactical 64 Century 65 Century Arms 66 Charles Daly 67 Chattahoochee Gun Works LLC 68 Chengdu Hongguag Machinery Manufacturing Co Ltd 69 Chiappa Firearms 70 Christensen Arms 71 Christian Armory Works (CAW) 72 CIV Tactical 73 CMMG 74 CMS* 75 Cobra Tactical 76 Colt's 77 Compass Lake Engineering (CLE) 78 Conquest Arms 79 Controlled Chaos Arms 80 Core15 81 Crusader Weaponry 82 D.S. Arms 83 Dalphon Firearms* 84 Daniel Defense 85 Dedicated Technology 86 Delaware Machinery 87 Delta Arms Company 88 Del-Ton 89 Denny's Guns 90 Detroit Gun Works 91 Diemaco* 92 Dlask Arms 93 Double Diamond Law Enforcement Supply 94 Double Star 95 DPMS / Panther Arms 96 Dreadnaught Industries 97 Duty Precision Machinery Shops (DPM Shops) 98 Eagle Arms 99 East Coast Gun Sales 100 Echigoya 101 Edward Arms 102 Elite Arms 103 Essential Arms 104 Fabrique Nationale 105 Firebird Precision 106 Frankford Arsenal 107 Franklin Armory 108 Frozen North Firearms* 109 Fulton Armory 110 GA Precision (GAP) 111 Galati International 112 GAR Arms 113 Global Tactical 114 GM Corp.* 115 Good Time Outdoors Inc 116 Grenadier Precision* 117 Group Industries* 118 GT Vertical Concepts (GTVC) 119 Gun Smoke Enterprises 120 H&H Enterprises 121 Harrington and Richarson (H&R)* 122 Hatcher Gun Company 123 Head Down Products 124 Hecklor and Koch 125 Henderson Defense 126 Hera Arms 127 Hera Arms, Germany 128 Hesse 129 High Mountain Hunting Supply 130 High Standard Manufacturing Company 131 Hogan guns 132 Holland Gun Works 133 Houlding Precision 134 Huldra Arms 135 Integrity Arms and Survival 136 Iron Ridge Arms 137 JARD Inc. 138 JD Machine 139 JP Enterprises 140 JSE Surplus 141 Kaiser Defense 142 Kiss Tactical 143 Knights Armament Co. (KAC) 144 Kurt's Kustom Firearms (KKF) 145 L&G weaponry 146 Lancer Systems 147 Land Warfare Research Company (LWRC) 148 Lantac, UK 149 LAR Grizzly 150 LaRue 151 Lauer Custom Weaponry (LCW) 152 LBR Arms 153 Legion Firearms 154 Les Bauer 155 Lewis Machine and Tool (LMT) 156 Liberty Arms 157 Liberty Tactical 158 Loki 159 Lone Wolf Distributing 160 M Weapons 161 Mack Gwinn Industries (?) (MGI) 162 Magpul 163 Mattel Corp.* 164 McKay Enterprises LLC. 165 Mean Metal Inc 166 Medesha Fireamrs 167 Mega Arms 168 Model 1 Sales 169 Mohawk Armory 170 Molot 171 Mossberg 172 National Ordinance Company 173 New Evolution Military Ordinance (NEMO) 174 New Frontier Armory 175 Next Generation Arms 176 Nodak 177 Nordic Components 178 Norinco 179 North East Arms 180 Noveske 181 Oberland Arms, Gemany 182 Olympic Arms 183 Palmetto State Armory 184 Palmetto State Defense 185 Para - USA 186 Patriot Defense Arms 187 Patriot Ordinance (POF) 188 Plum Crazy 189 Precision Firearms 190 Precision Guncraft 191 Predator Custom Shop 192 Predator Tactical 193 PRI Uppers 194 Primary Weapons Systems (PWS) 195 ProArms 196 PWA* 197 Quality Arms 198 Quentin Defence 199 R Guns 200 Rainer Arms 201 Ratworx 202 RCM Gun Parts 203 Red Jacket Firearms 204 Red X Arms 205 Remington 206 RGM inc 207 Rifle Dynamics 208 RifleGear 209 RND 210 Rock Island Arsenal 211 Rock River Arms 212 Rocky Mountain Arms 213 Roggio Arsenal 214 Ruger 215 S I Defense 216 Saber Tactical 217 Sabre Defence* 218 Schmeisser, Germany 219 Scorpion Tactical 220 Seekins Precision 221 Senda Corp* 222 Sendra 223 SGW* 224 Shadow Ops Weaponry 225 Sharps Rifle Company/Sharps rifle 226 Sig Arms 227 Sionics 228 Smith & Wesson 229 SNS Industries* 230 SOCOM Mfg. 231 Sog Arms 232 Sonju Defense 233 Southern Gun Co. 234 Specialized Dynamics 235 Specialized Tacitcal Systems 236 Spike's Tactical 237 Stag Arms 238 State of the Art Arms (SOTA) 239 Sterling Arsenal 240 Stinger Arms 241 Sun Devil 242 Superior Arms 243 Suplus Ammo and Arms 244 Tactial Weapons Solutions 245 Tactical Ammunition 246 Tactical Arms Manufacturing 247 Tactical Innovations 248 Tactical Machining 249 Tactics LLC* 250 Templar Custom 251 Templar Tactical Arms 252 Teppo Jutsu LLC. 253 Thompson Machine 254 Thor Glocal Defense 255 Timberwolf Tactical 256 Titan Ordinance 257 TKS Engineering 258 TNW Firearms 259 Tommy15 260 Top Notch Tacitcal (TNT) 261 Triplett Firearms 262 Tromix 263 U T Arms 264 Umbrella Corporation Weapons Research Group 265 US Fireams Academy 266 USA Tactical Firearms 267 Valkyrie Arms 268 Vidalia Police Supply 269 Vltor 270 Vulcan Armament 271 WFC Proshop 272 White Oaks Armament 273 Wilson Combat 274 Windham Weaponry 275 Xtreme Machinig 276 Yankee Hill Machine (YHM) 277 Z M Weapons 278 Zel Custom Manufacturing 279 Zombie Defense

There's probably more different companies making AR-15's (both with the Stoner gas system and pistons, but the point still holds even if you exclude the latter) than ever made any particular basic firearms design in the history of ever; it's certainly the most copied firearms design in the known universe.

@@BlokeontheRange Haha ok, valid, my bad! I guess I meant the DI gas system on non AR rifles, but honestly I still don't know enough to know what I don't know if that makes sense - such a big world of firearms when you live in Australia...

It's a case of "why re-invent the wheel and have to shake out all the issues when you can literally just copy this 1:1 and you know it'll function right off the bat" :)

@@BlokeontheRange That both makes sense and is slightly disappointing, clearly truth haha. Cheers for the correction, don't know what I was thinking!

I think I did OK for not having lived in NL for 11 years...

@@BlokeontheRange So do I. A little trick the underground used during the war to identify German infiltrators was to have them say "achtentachtig kacheltjes".

Sheet metal!

There was no patent in China for them to infringe 🤷‍♀️

The CQ began production in 1983, which appears to be immediately post patent (I didn't look up all of them, but the one Stoner patent I looked at expired Feb 1983).

@@BlokeontheRange If there was they still won't care.

The Stoner gas system US patent is US2951424. Granted 6 September 1960, expired 17 years later on 6 September 1977. The UK family member GB821974A was earlier than the law change, so expired 10 May 1973 (filing date 10 May 1957 + 16 years)

No. the gas system is not original tot he AR. The gas impingement system was used in the Swedish ljungman Introduced in 1942 and also licence built by Egypt as the Hakim

Don't be misled by the inappropriate labeling of the Stoner AR10 gas system as "direct inpingement", like the Swedish, Egyptian, or French rifles that use true direct gas impingement. The Stoner system really was new - it's actually a topologically inverted short stroke gas piston with a really long gas tube - the *bolt* (which remains stationary in terms of the gas operation - it only moves after the bolt carrier is already thrust to the rear) is the "piston", whilst the bolt carrier is the "cylinder". But it's inverted, like a spigot mortar is an inverted gun tube, where the central rod is solid and the hollow tail on the bomb is blown forward. The Stoner AR10 gas system allows for a *completely* straight line arrangement of forces, for true straight line recoil- making it far more controllable than contemporaries, even those that weigh far more. *All* of the significant force vectors are not only entirely coaxial to the bore axis, they are *concentric* to the bore axis. Thus, the only forces pushing the muzzle around (up, down, right, or left) are any muzzle device one mounts that defects the gases, and how one mounts the rifle for firing. If you don't have a muzzle brake applying assymetric forces, and you hold the rifle so there is a straight line from the muzzle through the bolt, through the stock, into the mounting point (i.e., your shoulder in most cases), the gun won't rise like pretty.much every other firearm has a tendency to do. Even if your mount is inperfect, or you have a muzzle device with that applies a slight force up or down, the muzzle deflection is minimized via geometry. And *that* was the secret sauce that Armalite sold to Colt.

Sorry, but no they don't, not on either count...

Patents allow people to get paid for original work and the cost/risk of doing it. It’s so important that it’s one of the few things the federal government can do that’s specifically mentioned in the US constitution.

The idea of a Patent is to encourage innovation and invention by rewarding whoever comes up with it a time to profit without being copied by all the cheapskates in the world. That could allow money for more research and development.

The *normal* case for patent expiry in Current Year, if all maintenance fees are paid, is 20 years from filing (of the application itself or the oldest parent if a divisional/continuation/continuation-in-part). US has a weird patent term adjustment thing in some cases, and many countries have 5-year extensions (Supplementary Protection Certificates, specific to certain pharma and plant protection products).

@@BlokeontheRange sorry, but as a member of the Swedish Inventors Association, I have to say there is a misconception of yours in the assumption that patents reward innovators by offering protection of the product. In reality, what a patent gives the innovator is the possibility to legally enforce exclusiveness for a limited time period. Potato/tomato? Not really, as a the difference is whether the innovation is actually protected, or as is today, only protected to the extent the patent holder can afford to cover the legal fees to uphold it AND can find the legal competence to make it work.

Nobody knocked off the Stoner action? As in the AR-10 / AR-15 action? Mate, every man, woman and dog is making AR15-derived rifles, all around the world! It's probably the most copied system ever XD

@@BlokeontheRange I don’t quite think so. Obviously if you consider the US civilian market then everybody and their mother are making AR uppers and components. But if you consider state militaries nobody based anything on stoner action. Canadians make AR 15 style rifles, but I think they are legit AR 15. What is really widespread is sticking an AR 18 action into an AR 15/10 body. Several countries have done that, including the US. But not so with Stoner action. I actually don’t know if lower receivers have anything to do with Gene Stoner, everybody copies them, of course. I may be missing something obvious here…

"Legit" AR-15's are still copies... You've got a ton of European manufacturers doing it, Norinco do it in China, and so on. They're usually closer copies. The "sticking an AR18 action into an AR15/10 body" are just piston modifications of AR 15/10 rifles - they don't tend to run on rails or have any of the other features that make an AR18 an AR18.

@@BlokeontheRange “Piston modification” means “no Stoner action”. I can’t think of anybody other than the Canadians that equip national army units with AR 15 copies. You can build your own AR 15 or 10 out of an 80p kit but it’s not the same as equipping an army with Steyr AUGs. My point is Stoner action has not been used for further development.

@@sergecashman5990 You can't think of anyone other than the Canadians? Hoookay, perhaps think a little longer about that? Also: "further development": why change near-perfection? There's no point in being proprietory for the sake of being proprietory.

There have been civilian AR-18's for the US market though: AR-180, which are literally the military ones with semiauto trigger groups, AR-180b (same but with a polymer lower iirc), and now the BRN-180 machined from solid and designed to fit AR15 lowers.

The AR18 has repeatedly failed to capture more than a niche market in the US, for much the same reason the AR18 didn't manage to beat out the AR15/M16 during Vietnam when the US mikitary was actually looking at options to bail out from the M16 when the first (self-inflicted by the US military) problems came up. The AR15 is generally superior in all operstor facing aspects. It handles better, is generally (when built to an equal standard of quality) more accurate, etc. What the AR18 *does* give the operator that an AR15 *doesn't* is the option for a folding stock without getting wonky with the buffer and recoil spring setup. But folding stocks are really quite worthless if you don't have the *neex* to be able to stow the rifle in the shortest compartment possible. Paratroopers, aviation crew needing a crash site rifle that otherwise sits on the helicopter in a bracket, armor or transportation troops who want a bit more than a SMG that sits in a bracket in their vehicle until they really need it, etc. For dismounted troops, or even mechanized troops who don't have a Soviet style IFV with firing ports that accept their individual rifle, a folding stock is nothing but a liability of more bits that can rust or break. For civilian use, one could make a case for police (the "it needs to fit in a bracket that can only be yay long"), or the oddball civilian who has a "just in case" rifle that "needs" to fit in a limited space under your car seat or inside a backpack. You want to see who benefits from a folding stock on their assault rifle? Look no further than the Soviet army and the Kalashnikov. Now, if one doesn't have an aerospace or other industry set up for casting and forging aluminum, but is set up for large scale low cost steel stampings (particularly fairly simple stampings, albeit ones that require at least decent steel), the AR18 is a better fit for the industrial requirements of your nation.

A product Armalite marketed after they sold the rights to the AR-15 to Colt. It uses a short stroke system. p.s.: read the wiki

What Arnold uses in Terminator 1 among other guns.

America's greatest export...to Ireland.