Tesla Releases Electric Car Patents To the Public 211
mknewman (557587) writes with a welcome followup to the broad hints that Tesla might release some of its patents for others to use patents that it has amassed. Now, Elon Musk writes on the company's blog: Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
Trust but verify (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were personally going to use one of Tesla's patents in my business, I'd want a signed zero-cost GPL-like license agreement with Tesla. For example, Musk's good will is nice, but what if someone else were to acquire Tesla's IP?
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Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. It is a blanket contract with the public at large. This was a public statement made in a public forum, and it carries with it the full force of contract law. If he tries to sue anyone who acted "in good faith" this statement could be used as evidence against him in a court of law.
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I think we can safely divide the potentual innovators in electric car design into two categories:
1. Start-ups and lone individuals who lack any significant patent portfolio of their own
2. The small number of big auto-giants (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler)
The promise was simply not to "initiate" any patent lawsuits as long as people where acting in "good faith". This is effectively the offer of a patent non-aggression pact, if you don't sue us, we won't sue you.
Startups can tweak and reinvent the technology
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Interesting)
Well the blog post is really all they need now. he is the CEO of the company, which means what he writes there is what it is. If they sue now there will be some massive fees for them..
The question I would have though is what it means to be in good faith...
Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo.
If I had any real forward momentum with an electric car design that might use something patented by Tesla, I'd approach them to get a formal agreement, even if it's just a rubber-stamp formality. The tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer costs to ensure that millions of dollars in lawsuits are avoided would be worthwhile.
It is worthy to note that automakers have released patents before. Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt that has become the ubiquitous seatbelt today, and they felt that it was so important that they released their patent early specifically so that other automakers could make their cars safer.
I kind of also expect that Tesla has something new, so these patents aren't all that important to protect their business, as their new thing will probably blow the doors off of the current stuff.
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4)
I kind of also expect that Tesla has something new, so these patents aren't all that important to protect their business, as their new thing will probably blow the doors off of the current stuff.
It rather reads as a new policy with regard to all patents, existing and future. So your expectation doesn't seem likely.
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A clearer statement than "we took our plaques off our wall" is needed, but assuming there is a clear statement from Tesla that they will only use these patents defensively, anyone who takes them at their word should be safe.
Telsa should have the CEO publicly post such a statement where Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use their technology. This will be quickly picked up by tech blogs and linked to the statement.
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Telsa should have the CEO publicly post such a statement where Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use their technology. This will be quickly picked up by tech blogs and linked to the statement.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not... because it's EXACTLY WHAT THE LINKED BLOG POST IS. And in fact, that's exactly what Slashdot just did...
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Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't really need something "new", because what they already have is a completely new mindset for a car company. They are so far ahead of the established old-thought auto makers in so many areas that it would take the rest of them a complete overhaul of their entire executive staff, middle management, engineer and design teams, factories, etc, to get close.
Not to mention they are profitable and make an $80k+ niche car that has been backordered since well before it was ever released. At some level it's like Ferrari saying "ok, we are releasing the patents behind our $1M supercar" - the market is so specialized it wouldn't matter, and Ferrari's demand so outstrips their supply you basically have to get permission from Ferrari to even buy one [carsguide.com.au].
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No, the problem happens if someone comes in and buys Tesla out from under him.
The ownership of those patents is now the people who own Tesla. They may see things differently.
So, Musk can say all this all he wants, and it amounts to "while I'm CEO". But unless there is something which is legally binding, someone else could change their mind.
This sounds like a nice promise, and a well
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Insightful)
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I certainly hope so, but the tinfoil hat certainly skews my perceptions a little. ;-)
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Maybe you need to cut some eye holes in it. ;-)
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Informative)
But then they will be able to directly read my thoughts from my eyes, man, and their retinal scanners will be able to track my movements.
Don't you know anything? ;-)
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You know, I watched my wife work all day gettin' thirty tinfoil sheets together for you ungrateful sons of bitches, and all I hear is criticize, criticize, criticize!
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Trust but verify (Score:2)
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If there was a written agreement/contract or patent license (which I assume there will be, and it will also include very specific clauses about indemnifying Tesla against any lawsuits of the licensee) then it doesn't matter.
And despite the casual tone of Musk's post, Tesla is a large public company and still beholden to shareholders, etc. They will undoubtedly get the lawyers involved to make sure things go as planned. This isn't the first time a company has done this (or similarly, multiple companies hav
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Well the blog post is really all they need now. he is the CEO of the company, which means what he writes there is what it is. If they sue now there will be some massive fees for them..
The question I would have though is what it means to be in good faith...
And when your company builds its entire product line on Tesla patents... it'll be 5 to 10 years until you have a product. Tesla cars end up causing cancer or something so they go bankrupt and Apple buys up their patents as part of their bankruptcy... You wont even have to wait for the Apple lawsuit. Your stock will tank and you'll be out of business long before that.
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Well the blog post is really all they need now. he is the CEO of the company, which means what he writes there is what it is. If they sue now there will be some massive fees for them..
The question I would have though is what it means to be in good faith...
'good faith' is a legal term that is understood by courts. It is no more vague than "causing a public nuisance".
good faith: building and selling your own standards compliant electric cars for profit.
good faith: trying to build or design an improved version of the electric car based on tesla's technology.
good faith: making a standards compliant legal cell phone with a longer battery life.
not good faith : using the patents to operate a mobile meth lab.
not good faith: building substandard cars that have a 50%
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And most importantly...
not good faith: using our patents and then trying to sue us for infringing yours.
They aren't going to give up their defensive position, they are basically just promising not to sue if they are not sued.
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If I were personally going to use one of Tesla's patents in my business, I'd want a signed zero-cost GPL-like license agreement with Tesla. For example, Musk's good will is nice, but what if someone else were to acquire Tesla's IP?
To that end, "good faith" doesn't have a history in patent law; he could take anyone who was using the patents to seriously compete or encroach on Tesla's existing market share as lacking it, and there would be no recourse.
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IANAL but this was always how I understood contracts and verbal ones. A verbal agreement is still an agreement and the reason they are generally not considered "much good" is that they are, in the general case, notoriously hard to prove exist and to prove the exact terms of.... but that doesn't make them any less real in cases where those issues are not the case.
Here we have public and fairly explicit statements from an officer of the company who is authorized to speak to the public. I think that unless the
Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Informative)
If I were personally going to use one of Tesla's patents in my business, I'd want a signed zero-cost GPL-like license agreement with Tesla. For example, Musk's good will is nice, but what if someone else were to acquire Tesla's IP?
It wouldn't matter, I don't think. A clearer statement than "we took our plaques off our wall" is needed, but assuming there is a clear statement from Tesla that they will only use these patents defensively, anyone who takes them at their word should be safe.
Why? There's a legal concept called "promissory estoppel". In a nutshell, it means that if I make you a promise and you, in good faith, depend upon that promise and build your business on it, and I knew or should have known that you were going to do so, then I can't later change my mind, withdraw my promise and sue you for doing what I said you could do.
Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Interesting)
You're fully correct about the legal doctrine, but in reality there's a non-zero chance that it will cost you a very large number of dollars to defend a patent lawsuit filed by a future assignee who convinces the judge that even the "clearer statement" (1) wasn't so clear and/or (2) didn't apply to your particular use.
There's actually a simple way that Tesla could make this binding -- formally disclaim the rest of the term of the patents at the Patent Office [uspto.gov].
37 C.F.R. 1.321 Statutory disclaimers, including terminal disclaimers.
(a) A patentee owning the whole or any sectional interest in a patent may disclaim any complete claim or claims in a patent. In like manner any patentee may disclaim or dedicate to the public the entire term, or any terminal part of the term, of the patent granted. Such disclaimer is binding upon the grantee and its successors or assigns. A notice of the disclaimer is published in the Official Gazette and attached to the printed copies of the specification.
It will be interesting to see if they actually go that far.
Re:Trust but verify (Score:5, Insightful)
That would defeat their ability to use the patents defensively. For example, Toyota coming after them for violating some Prius patent.
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True enough, but if they're going to keep the patents in force then in my opinion this amounts to little more than a publicity stunt. If and when I can get from them on demand a fully-paid-up license to their entire portfolio for $1 so I have actual, legal, freedom to operate, I'll take this more seriously.
Re:Trust but verify (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a middle ground. They could issue a zero-cost, binding, globally-applicable patent license with an exception that withdraws the license from anyone who sues them. This is actually pretty common, and I think it would be a much better choice than placing the patents in the public domain.
I expect something like that will be forthcoming. So far all we have is a blog post; I imagine the more substantive version from the legal department is in progress.
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If you know of any examples of such a pledge being tested and enforced by a court, I'd appreciate seeing them. My understanding is that while the practice is somewhat in vogue recently, it's still very much a no-man's-land in terms of future certainty. For example, does the promise only apply to the initial promisor, or is the patent itself permanently impaired and future assignees take subject to that impairment? The last few years of litigation in the somewhat parallel area of licensing commitments to
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I don't know of any challenges, but the principle in question seems nearly identical to the copyleft notion underlying the GPL -- a notion that went untested in court for a very long time because, basically, every attorney that looked at it decided it wasn't worth fighting. As for whether an assignee is obligated to honor the license, I can't see how they could possibly avoid it, particularly if the license states that it's irrevocable (excepting its exceptions). I'm not aware of any purchaser of a patent w
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I don't know of any challenges, but the principle in question seems nearly identical to the copyleft notion underlying the GPL -- a notion that went untested in court for a very long time because, basically, every attorney that looked at it decided it wasn't worth fighting.
At least some manufacturers of electric cars presumably will have more money splashing around than open-source software developers, and thus will be more attractive targets. Beyond that, I'd be careful analogizing very much at all between copyrights and patents -- they're two entirely separate bodies of law.
I'm not aware of any purchaser of a patent who has successfully argued that they can revoke a licensing commitment to a standards body, either. It seems to me that the precedent is rather firmly established.
It all depends on what you mean by "successfully argued." The real-world question is not whether an argument will ultimately carry the day at trial, but how much money you're going to spend either (1)
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Disclaimer: IANAL
Yes, it appears that "promissory estoppel" can create an implied contract, but it's not at all clear to me that a press release mee
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Tell that to all the people who based their software off of Java, who used the API in good faith.
None of whom have been successfully sued. Oracle tried to sue Google, not based on using the API, but on re-implementing Java. And they lost.
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For example, Musk's good will is nice, but what if someone else were to acquire Tesla's IP?
IANAL, but I believe that if you have a license to use intellectual property, and the owner of the IP is acquired, the license would still be valid. For example, if you hold the copyright to a song and I pay you $10k to license that song in a movie, and then you sold the copyright to that song, the new owner can't turn around sue me for using the song in my movie. I believe the same thing holds for patents.
So the question is, can Tesla's promise not to sue be construed as a "license". I believe that if
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For example, if you hold the copyright to a song and I pay you $10k to license that song in a movie, and then you sold the copyright to that song, the new owner can't turn around sue me for using the song in my movie.
All true. However, you might not be able to continue to sell copies of that movie.
It recently happened on GoG and Steam just recently for example; they each had a licenses to sell Fallout; Bethesda got rights to all the Fallout IP from Interplay, and Steam and GoG had to remove the games from
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All true. However, you might not be able to continue to sell copies of that movie.
It recently happened on GoG and Steam just recently for example; they each had a licenses to sell Fallout; Bethesda got rights to all the Fallout IP from Interplay, and Steam and GoG had to remove the games from the catalog; at least until they get a new licensing deal from Bethesda (which may or may not happen).
You're confusing different things. GOG and Steam are stores. If I make a movie, and then I sell the copyright to that movie, the new copyright holder can pull copies of that movie from store shelves, depending on the distribution deals they have with the stores that carry it. However, if I've sold a license to HBO to show that movie for the next year, the new copyright holder can't simply pull the movie from HBO.
You'll also see it with movies etc where it gets REALLY stupid, where the company that holds the rights to the movie can't make a DVD release because they only have the rights to soundtrack/music for VHS. (Which is one reason you'll sometimes see a DVD release with an altered soundtrack)
But that's not because the company that holds the rights to the music was allowed to revoke t
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To avoid lawsuits, big companies will probably still want a contract signed before using the patented technology on purpose. The smaller players won't be able to ask for something signed, but they also will be less likely to worry about lawsuits, and they are sufficiently covered by Musk's public official blog post.
No good deed will go unpunished though. Saying "no strings attached" is practically asking for people to look for the strings, and then make imaginary ones up when they can't be found.
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does Elon Musk's infamy know no bounds?!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Open Source RULES Innovation Advances Civilization (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Now, I don't wanna do anything gay or nothin', but I kinda wanna make love to this man.
Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you Elon Musk.
If only every other CEO had the same courage. Also, if he's willing to do this for SpaceX, I have no problems with a private company doign space exporation.
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If only I had mod points :(
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I don't think it has anything to do with courage. Businesses have to be able to leverage the patent to repay R&D cost. I know not all patents fall under this category but many do.
Tesla is niche enough that they can afford to do it because it won't prevent them from recovering their R&D cost. But not all products or business models allow for easy return on R&D investments.
Re: Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
SpaceX doesn't have any patents to give away (or at least not many). This was intentional, because the entities most likely to violate the patents wouldn't be bound by them (certain countries). Getting a patent requires publishing the details, and all that does for a country that ignores patents is make it easier to copy.
Re:Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla and SpaceX are currently in very, very different markets. Tesla is selling luxury consumer products, and trying to get the economies of scale + technical innovation to start selling non-luxury consumer products, where the real market is. They are also competing against an entrenched, widely-deployed technology that has been in widespread use for longer than 99.9% of the human race has been alive. They need their product to become more than a niche, and they need to have viable competition if for no other reason than for the legitimacy that competition brings.
SpaceX sells cheap, high-tech rocket launches, where cheap means something like what a "cheap" computer in the 50s would mean: governments and really big organizations can afford to buy them, and nobody else is even going to consider it. In a way, they're the opposite of Tesla: rather than being a luxury brand trying to get cheaper, they're aiming to be the cheap alternative to the existing competition.
Unlike Tesla, SpaceX is not publicly traded and does not file for patents. Patents provide no meaningful protection against the Chinese or Russian governments, which are the organizations SpaceX is most interested in competing with. SpaceX patenting their stuff would allow those entities to undercut SpaceX for the small number of customers that even exist in such a space, because they could use the disclosed technology without needing to recoup R&D investments or pay California salaries and regulatory costs.
The problem is that SpaceX is the only organization in the world currently demonstrating great success in disrupting the entrenched space launch market, and they need to (and do) re-invest their profits from those launches into producing still-better (cheaper) launchers if the want to achieve their stated goals of making space access cheap enough that actual human beings can afford it. They can't afford to be undercut, because there just aren't enough customers right now for them to afford to do other than fight for every purchase they can get. Tesla can totally afford to be undercut; it will help grow their market (electric car owners) and meanwhile there will always be people who will buy their cars just because the market is big enough.
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You should tell that to Apple. Maybe they'll start selling low end devices. It's working out so great for HP, Samsung, HTC, Dell, and all the other device manufacturers. Oh. wait, it isn't. Apple is raking in tons of profits selling only high end devices, while all the other device manufacturers are fighting for the bottom of the market trying to figure out how to make a buck off people who don't want to spend money.
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Unless I am mistaken, the cost of an iPhone 5S and a Samsung Galaxy S 5 are very comparable. Why is one a luxury product and the other non-luxury?
A share-alike clause? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not sure that would be aligned with his stated goals - to encourage the production of electric vehicles. Auto companies aren't exactly bastions of open source, and look how long it took tech companies to start getting on board with share-alike licenses. Musk strikes me as the sort who dreams big - and whether his goal is to combat climate change or drum up business for his automotive battery gigafactory, a BSD-style license is likely more productive.
That said, I don't believe using the patents "in goo
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Did you reply to the right comment?
How is adding the requirement that source code available even for non-distributed server-based applications relevant to hardware patents?
I quite agree that it seems not all products can necessarily thrive under an open source philosophy, but BSD-style licensing is essentially public domain, what restrictions do you see it imposing?
Briliant move (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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You could, but it would be a VERY tough suit to win. Boards get a lot of discretion under the business judgment rule.
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If such were the case, Google surely would have been sued to the brink by its shareholders by now.
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What about the shareholders? (Score:4, Informative)
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Also, what most slashdotters seems to have missed, this is a good business decision - Elon knows that he is going to face competition from the major players in the car market - by opening up his patents on charging, he is gaming that the next batch of cars will support the system *his* cars are using.
By being the defacto standard, he can ensure his customers will have access to charging stations, when the big guns starts putting them up around the world - if a competing standard is chosen, the Tesla might f
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How much of that stock is owned by Musk himself?
Re:What about the shareholders? (Score:5, Insightful)
The plaintiffs would have to demonstrate how the company lost value by them doing that.
Also, if the articles of incorporation or the IPO documentation includes a statement indicating that increasing the use of electric vehicles is a corporate goal, alongside of, or even more important than, making money, then this move could be perfectly aligned with the stated corporate goals which the investors bought into, even if it can be proven that this move decreased share value.
A very interesting thing to do - however. (Score:2)
Don't patents have a 'must defend' clause in them for them to continue to be valid?
By doing this, instead of (say) licencing them at a dollar per, haven't they invalidated their own patents and made them able to be used
by anyone - including those not in good faith?
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I believe you are thinking of Trademarks.
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They absolutely do not. Trademarks do.
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What does "In Good Faith" mean? (Score:3)
This press release is all fine and good, but what does the qualifier "In Good Faith" mean?
Until Tesla provides a license with the legal verbiage that describes "In Good Faith" I'm not so ready to start the celebrations. Without a license to use the patent, you are stupid to knowingly infringe on it, regardless of what some CEO says in a press release.
Re:What does "In Good Faith" mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Good faith is a legal concept often addressed in court. Some opposite concepts are bad faith and negligence. All of these center around the beliefs of a rational person: if a rational person with appropriate qualifications (i.e. your engineers did X, would an engineer know the implications of X?) would understand the consequences of an action, then you are held to that understanding. If you act such that you should know the outcome is harmful and contrary to what would be considered good faith, you are acting in bad faith.
An example of bad faith would be production of sub-quality components with a staff of engineers who understand the limits of such components. If you built chargers with 14ga wire to carry 20A currant, using aluminum core wire with extremely thin electroplating, those chargers would degrade quickly. If you are doing so and then marketing heavily in areas trafficked heavily by Tesla cars, we can reasonably assume you are committing sabotage: these chargers will quickly degrade, causing charging issues and damaging Tesla's image. If you release your own charger architecture of better quality, the evidence reinforces this: Why would you use 12ga full copper wire for 20A chargers of your design, but 14ga aluminum core for 20A of Tesla's design?
Evidence of ulterior motives and willful negligence constitute bad faith.
This really does work to their advantage (Score:2)
Right now they have virtually zero real competition. On the other side, many people are still afraid of electric cars for one reason or another. And by helping the market expand, it will help their own brand succeed too.
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many people are still afraid of electric cars for one reason or another.
I'm not afraid of them, they just do not suit my daily driving needs and their TCO is still higher than the standard gasoline fueled cars available. It's not about fear, but economics and how impractical they are in practice. I need a car that can reliably go 200 miles at 30 - 70 MPH on a hot day without recharging, carry 4 comfortably and has a TCO that compares to the used Honda Accord I have now. Right now, such electric cars don't exist, or they are hugely expensive.
Is There A List? (Score:5, Interesting)
Read through the blog post, didn't see a link or listing of the patents that they've 'open-sourced.'
Anybody know where to find them? I'm curious.
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Tesla Patents [uspto.gov]
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Hm, would have expected there would be more than 11 of them, considering the number of plaques on that wall... [flickr.com]
FYI, if that link to the picture doesn't work, go read the comments on the Tesla blog post, that's where I found it.
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No one has ever accused the patent office of making things easy to find.
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Good Job Tesla - Now how about that GPL source? (Score:2)
This is a great move by Tesla and I hope that more companies follow suit.
Now - how about releasing the source code to owners for GPL software and derivatives you ship in your vehicles?
So far I am not aware of any owners who have been successful in getting access to that code.
GM (Score:2)
It seems it is possible, for example, for GM to build charging stations using Tesla's patents and then only allow GM cars and prohibit any Tesla cars from using the charging stations.
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Sure. But that doesn't put Tesla in an worse a position, given that GM don't have any charging infrastructure for Tesla drivers to use now.
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His past... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:His past... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets the games begin! (Score:2)
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Most likely is that they want a few of their ideas to become standard - like Supercharger infrastructure. If they manage to get even one major OEM to cooperate and add supercharger receptables, that is a massive win for Tesla.
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The blog clearly says all. Though I'm not sure how you would propose to make an electric car a commodity without a way to power it or to supply energy to it.
Phillip.
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the car part will be open source or freely licensed patents or whatever
but since those cover the charging and the specs for the charger there is a good chance it will require tesla brand batteries and charging stations. if the patents for those weren't released then we just figured out how they will make their money
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He says "Our technology" and "All our patent", so presumably they're meaning every single one of the 169 patents they currently hold [uspto.gov], except maybe the 8 design patents.
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Extort? A company making money is not "extortion".
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No. Extortion is the use of coercion to make you pay.
Let's say you need to get to a job interview, and your car runs out of fuel. You have AAA, and can call for a tow or fuel, enough to get to the next gas station 5 miles away, free; it'll take over an hour, and you don't have time. If the gas station right across the street charges $3.50/gal, but the owner sees you require fuel RIGHT NOW for the security of your livelihood and so jacks up the price, that's extortion: he sees your situation allows him
screw those guys (Score:3)
Actually, the current map doesn't cover a good part of the deep South or most of northern Tea-bag-anistan. But it does cover the important (sic) parts of Texas, WTF.
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I don't understand their lack of coverage on the I-35 corridor, the primary north-south corridor through the center of the country. Even when they add the Oklahoma City station later this year, and the Augusta, Kansas station in 2015, the runs from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City and from Topeka to Des Moines seem huge.
Ok, the internet says those distances are 196 miles and 256 miles, respectively. Already that only works in the 85 kWh version, and then only barely.
That just seems strange to me. In my anecdo
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