Ann: Primobius - 50tpd Spoke Engineering Cost Study Results, page-28

I don't have the answer to the royalty question sorry but I had assumed that discharging was essential for all batteries whether they are individual cells or multi-cell modules. A semi-charged cell would be dangerous if sent to a recycling plant. Warranty-based returns of modules would also frequently leave the modules containing high charges. Is it not perhaps that the combined process of discharge plus recycling is the new step?

On the topic of discharge, the CSIRO have developed a new process which feeds the charge into the plant's electricity grid - see here. Using a process such as this would pay back most, if not all, of the costs of a discharging step.

I was looking at similar spoke and hub recycling tech used by other recyclers and found this excellent short video by Li-Cycle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfNe8yO4t4M It is an excellent introduction to the hub and spoke battery recycling process and certainly cleared up any misunderstanding that I had.