Didn’t see a thread on this, so…
Seems that the Tesla Company has made its patents ‘open’,or did they? They state that they will not pursue lawsuits if people use their technology in good faith:
I wonder if this actually means anything, or is it just a stunt?
I think it means something. The only real “stunt” part of it is the overly altruistic-sounding wording of the announcement, which sounds a little heavy on marketing good feelings and a little short on their actual motivation. It’s cool that they want to “accelerate the advent of sustainable transport,” but it’s safe to assume they’d also like to “sell Tesla electric cars at a profit by the absolute shitload,” which is easier to do when there’s a huge market for electric cars in general, which in turn is an easier thing to create if you remove potential barriers like patent lawsuits. Basically, I expect that they think they’ll make more money selling more cars sooner than they would by fighting court battles, even if they win.
So, their choice to allow people to infringe on their patents is probably much more driven by market economics than by noble, good-for-humanity motivations. Even so, it’s likely to help… uh, accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, so it’s still a good thing.
Yeah, more electric cars means charging stations become economically viable, which means potentially more sales of electric cars, especially if the manufacturers can agree on a standard for charging. While it’s a good thing, it makes business sense as well.
It’s a TRAP!
They left out two words: “…for now.”
In any legal sense this is meaningless. They can say this today, and then tomorrow turn around and claim proprietary rights to their intellectual property. The statement also makes the claim of allowing others “to use our technology”. Does that mean that they will provide the engineering specifications and allow other would-be electric carmakers to have competitive access to their supply chain? That seems unlikely to say the least.
If this were a genuine effort to provide free (as in speech) and open access to their proprietary technology, there is a way to go about doing that that is well established, i.e. by providing design detail under a permissive liecense (e.g. the BSD open source license or CERN Open Hardware License) and establishing an functional interface and construction standard which informs users of how to build and test the technolgy to conform to the fundamental design requirements, e.g. how the power distirbution system and control systems work, the form and regulated supply for the recharging system, et cetera.
This statement, on the other hand, gives all the hallmarks of passive-aggressively bragging about their “technology” as being so enviable that everyone else must steal it. Never mind that Nissan, General Motors, SMART, Mitsubishi are all producing all-electric cars (at a price point that is substantially less than the luxury segement Tesla Model S) and many others producing plug-in hybrids which are just as well suited as electric commuter cars as well as providing the ability to drive extended ranges.
Stranger
Amusingly, giving away all of his patents for free is how Tesla ended up washed out and broke, so I’m not sure if the Tesla guys have read the history of their namesake.
It did help AC to win the day, though.
Maybe that’s Elon’s idea though. “I’ve got my money, now I want to give back”.
As far as the statement, I didn’t read the articles, but perhaps that just the statement released to the public and I’d guess it’s worded differently to other businesses. If I was Nissan or Chevrolet or some random guy that wanted to start making electric cars I’m not sure I would just start ripping off those patents. It might say things like 'you can use our ideas for (for example) the charging station as long as the charging station you make will charge Teslas as well as your cars" Basically, you can ‘rip off’ our patents as long as it’s for the ‘greater good’ and not solely for your own personal gain. Use it to help make EVs more affordable for everyone not just so you don’t have to do your own research.
Then, they could still sue people who infringe on their patents without following the rules. Of course, that sounds like they’d be licensing out the technology and it sounds to me like Tesla wants them to just ‘have it’ and be able to improve on it. Maybe they’ve got Next Gen stuff in the pipe and as long as they’re done with this stuff they’re happy to give it away for free to see if someone else can get any use out of it.