Act One: The Straightforward Export
The IP lawyer had been confident. He had done export work before — software licensing agreements, a patent assignment to a UK firm, a technology transfer arrangement with a European university. He understood that military technology required export permits and had looked up the Export Control List entry for sonar processing equipment. Category 6.A.6. A permit was required for Australia. He would file it. He estimated six to eight weeks.
Reuben had signed the Australian contract based partly on this estimate. The delivery obligation was eighteen weeks from contract signature. He had ten weeks left.
What the IP lawyer had not known was that the signal processor at the core of Reuben's sonar unit was a US-origin DSP chip — not ITAR-controlled in itself, but the firmware Reuben's engineers had written for it incorporated US-origin signal processing methods documented in a company technical exchange agreement with a Massachusetts defence lab from three years ago. This created an ITAR technology content trace that applied ITAR re-export restrictions to the Canadian-manufactured product under the ITAR ''see-through'' rule.
The eight-week permit had just become an ITAR Technology Control Plan, a US State Department re-export authorization, and a Canada-Australia bilateral arrangement review — none of which the IP lawyer had filed before.
Act Two: Patricia's Practice
Patricia had built her practice over twelve years on exactly this type of situation — ITAR technology traces embedded in Canadian-manufactured defence products, discovered late in the transaction cycle, requiring both Global Affairs Canada and US State Department coordination. She had files in her cabinet for six firms in this exact position, each of whom had come to her after an initial lawyer had missed the see-through issue.
She had no marketing. Her clients came through CADSI contacts, a few referrals from CCC program officers, and two academic conference presentations. Outside Ottawa, she was essentially invisible.
She listed on the platform the previous month, documenting her ECL category experience (Groups 1–7 with specific transaction records) and her ITAR Technology Control Plan filings. The platform's Knowledge Slot asked her to contribute to the ITAR see-through rule decision tree, which she spent two hours drafting — the clearest documentation of the rule she had ever produced.
Act Three: The Ten Weeks
The platform matched Reuben's transaction profile to Patricia's competence listing the Tuesday after he posted it: ECL Category 6 (sensors/lasers), ITAR dual-use content, Five Eyes destination (Australia), CCC-adjacent transaction. High-confidence match.
Patricia reviewed the transaction profile and identified the Massachusetts technical exchange agreement as the probable ITAR trace within forty minutes of reading Reuben's submission.
Her initial scope call with Reuben lasted twenty-two minutes. She told him what he actually needed: a ITAR classification determination request to US State, a Technology Control Plan, a Canadian General Export Permit 12 application for the Australian destination, and a letter to the Australian CASG (Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group) explaining the timeline.
The delivery obligation was eight months from State's authorization date. She negotiated a contract amendment with the Australian end-user on Reuben's behalf. The revised timeline was agreed in four days.
The export permit package was filed eleven weeks later. State responded in six months. The sonar processors shipped on time under the amended schedule.
Reuben's IP lawyer sent a thank-you note for the referral.
Characters are fictional. EIPA Export Control List Category 6, ITAR see-through rule, Canadian Commercial Corporation export arrangements, and Global Affairs Canada export permit processing timelines are real. DeeperPoint is building the matching infrastructure this market requires.