It’s also not fair to buy a thing for a cheaper price because the IP rights aren’t included, then try to cut out the IP holder when things need fixing. The company bid a low initial price betting they would get additional revenue on spare parts and change orders later.
Finally, the military has incredible leverage at the start of a program that they could use better. Companies will include IP rights if the alternative is not getting a contract at all. Once the piece of equipment is fielded, leverage returns to the company.
And outsourcing. The military doesn't want to hold inventory on these things, either.
So, the military wants to offload everything and then is so very upset that they have no leverage and get overcharged.
The solution is straightforward: in-house manufacturing capacity. Suddenly you have leverage against the contractors. And, since this is the military, they can make that change by command fiat. But they won't.
Outsourcing is only useful when doing it internally is an alternative. Once the external companies know that you've lost that ability to do it yourself and can't threaten them anymore, they're going to squeeze you for every red cent they can.
You have to make the change and they are bound by funds appropriated and you have to deliver. The way this works out a good number of times is on the back end when you work together in a next phase to bill a 10k custom hammer as part of a maintenance and support contract . The reality is not that the hammer costs 10k but as a contractor you are being compensated for 10k of out of scope work you had to do in a prior phase.
Again this is almost certainly not about right to repair and more about fix the way these projects are budgeted and scoped.
Just my two cents here.