Tradergader: I assumed that someone is paying Synopsys because companies usually don't work for free and collaboration means that there is benefit to all parties.

Tradergader, that's right: you assumed. However, you could and should have known better. As a result of the due diligence that has been done here, we know that a) POET Technologies didn't pay Synopsys for the first phase of the project and that b) the company did not yet disclose whether it pays for the current phase or not.

That's what we are knowing. Everything else is assumption, interpretation, speculation. It may be right or wrong, but whatever you are assuming surely has a probability < 1 attached to it.