Resilience is the premium. On January 30, 2024, Lockheed Martin was granted US11888519B1, “Optical communication satellite cross-connect,” classified in H04B 10/118 with a satellite-comms tie in H04B 7/18521. The claim covers optical cross-connection — switching laser links — between satellites.
Optical cross-links let satellites pass data directly to one another and dynamically choose paths through the constellation. Beyond raw bandwidth, that re-routing capability is a resilience feature: if one path or ground station is jammed, denied, or destroyed, the network can route around it. For defense customers, a communications network that degrades gracefully under attack is worth far more than one that fails when a node goes down.
For the business desk, this maps resilience to willingness to pay. Government and defense buyers procure assured communications, and assurance — the guarantee that the network keeps working in contested conditions — carries premium pricing. An optical cross-connect patent is IP on exactly the capability that lets a prime sell resilience, not just connectivity, into the highest-budget customer base in the sector.
The caveat this desk keeps: optical cross-connection is technically demanding, and a patent is not a fielded, attack-tested network. Resilience claimed on paper must be proven in operation to command the premium.
But the value logic is sound. In defense comms the money follows assurance, and a re-routable optical network is an assurance product — a cross-connect patent is a claim on the resilience that customers pay up for.