Nikola (Motors) is Suing Tesla (engadget.com) 187
An anonymous reader shares a report: Nikola Tesla invented alternating electrical current. Nikola Motors is a mobility company working on a hydrogen-powered semi truck. Tesla makes fully electric vehicles and last December unveiled its EV Semi. Nikola Motors is suing Tesla Motors over patent infringements, according to Electrek. Nikola alleges that Tesla infringes on three of its patents: fuselage design, a wraparound windshield on a semi truck and a mid-entry door. Nikola claims that these design similarities have "caused confusion" among customers and stolen away over $2 billion in business, and that if problems arise with Tesla's Semi (like battery fires or glitches with autonomous driving), they'll be attributed to Nikola. Typical patent troll stuff.
Patent Trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what the laws on the books are for frivolous patent troll lawsuits, but it would be really beneficial to society if frivolous patent law suits were heavily discouraged by huge fines to the troll perpetrating them.
There is obviously a valid and just use for patents; but there is so much abuse of the system it is ludicrous.
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
Loosing party pays for civil suits would fix this quick.
It would stop ambulance chasing PE lawyers and those chasing medical malpractice suits too.
Loosing party pays, means that if you file and lose your lawsuit, you get to pay the winner's legal fees, along with any ordered compensation for damages. It also means that if you win, your legal fees are repaid.
Of course, the legal profession in this country soundly opposes this idea, so it's not happening.
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
Looser pays as blanket rule places to much risk on "little people" being able to sue the well to do.
Joe SixPack highers a perfectly competent but not rock star attorney who charges reasonable rates. Wants to sue oh lets say for fun Donald John Trump Development Corporation. Lets also suppose its a legitimate not so clear cut legal question or contract dispute. DJTDC has a fixed legal staff with time on their hands and every incentive to make the case take as long as possible and explore ever legal avenue and option no matter how absurd; you think its fair to stick Joe with ALL of those costs no matter what unless he wins?
Sure frivolous suits are frivolous, which is why you can counter sue for Barratry and recover your costs and in some localities a judge may simple rule the loser should pay court costs if he/she feels the case was without merit. The system as fair as far as civil suits go. There are problems with patent law for sure but don't assume the rest of the legal system is as broken or a lot of really smart people have not already considered the options, and set things up the way they did for solid reasons.
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:4, Interesting)
"Loser pays" doesn't have to be set up that "Rock Star" attorneys are paid their full rates. In fact, in the UK, where this exists, I think it happens some times that the loser only has to pay legal aid rates.
Also, the definition of "loser" isn't so simple as one might think. In the UK, if the defendant offers to settle the case for a certain amount of money and actually pays this money into escrow, then the loser is defined by whether the judge awarded an amount that was larger or smaller than the settlement offer.
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In the UK, costs are awarded by the judge - its not automatic, its a judgement call as to whether they are awarded at all, to whom they are awarded and to what extent they are awarded.
There are numerous cases of the party that brought the case being made to pay the full costs, even when they won.
The legal system in the UK is a lot fairer in this regard than the US system.
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People also forget corporation tend to go nuts suing hundreds of people. So lose one case, wham, lose them all and pay for all those court costs, so loser pays makes sound legal and moral sense. How those patents got approved is another thing. Clearly corporations should be able to sue the USPTO for allowing bogus patents through the system, if they can prove the patent should not have been approved, the USPTO should pay, for all associated costs of proving that patent invalid.
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Strange,
you want to tell me the losing party does not pay for the law suit in the US?
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Nope... Legal fees (What you pay your lawyer and his staff) are your expense in the USA.
For instance, my daughter had an injury from a car accident that wasn't her fault. Her injury will result in life time impairment of her dominate hand. She will get somewhere north of 60K in the settlement and if we hire a lawyer, they will take 1/3 to 1/2 of the money. We don't get to ask the insurance company for the 20k to 30k in legal fees they will take and get a settlement for 80-100 K just because we decided to
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Well,
in Germany the guy losing the case would pay all fees.
And the fees are determined on "the value of the case", so a lawyer would never get more than about 7k or so from a 60k case.
It is in most european countries similar, but I don't know the details.
So the american law system makes it easy that 'poor' people never get their right ...
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Yea, that horrible legal system in the USA.. Worst possible system I can imagine, except for every other system man has invented and tried. Maybe we can make it better with some tweaks? Maybe not....
I had a lawyer tell me once that only the lawyers usually win in a lawsuit. I think he was one of the few honest lawyers, well he was honest with his client (me)at least. In my experience, having been involved in a number of civil cases of various types, I can attest that pretty much only the lawyers are gua
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My usual suggestion is the loser pays is capped at the *lesser* amount that the parties paid for defense/offense.
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
My usual suggestion is the loser pays is capped at the *lesser* amount that the parties paid for defense/offense.
I'd go a step further and would like to see the amount of money that either side can spend be capped as well. Or at least capped, to a reasonable amount, in relation to what the non corporation can spend. Depending on the patent it may very well be worth it for a large corporation to throw millions of dollars at a individual knowing that they will only recoup, say $20K, in legal fees when they will make hundreds of millions off of a patent. If a corporation needs to spend $50K for each dollar an individual spends to defend a patent, then they don't have much of a case.
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You can often defend yourself. You're at a disadvantage, but probably not hopeless. What "loser pays" does is turns a loss into a financial disaster.
Suppose I want to sue a company. As is, my legal costs would doubtless be in the tens of thousands or more, and if I were to lose the suit that's all I'd lose. Tens of millions of people in the US could afford that if they really wanted to. With "loser pays", I go bankrupt if I lose the case.
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An archery party....
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "patent troll" typically describes a patentholder who is not actually practicing the patent but simply trying to monetize it.
Nikola has been actively developing its electric and hydrogen powered semi trucks for several years now and is targeting its first commercial sales next year. The complaint [scribd.com] alleges that Tesla first tried to poach Nikola's chief design engineer, and then simply copied Nikola's patented design.
That doesn't strike me as being even close to a typical "patent troll" scenario.
Re:Patent Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
These are design patents, basically how the truck looks.
There are only so many ways you can shape a semi-truck that accommodates the wind pressures in the most effective way. Look around at any modern (built in the last decade) truck, they all look the same for a reason.
Personally having looked at the Tesla and Nicola pictures I think the trucks don't look anything alike when you account for the things that have to be the same (which also match all the diesel trucks being built right now).
If Nicola's design patents cover these items they are covering design elements that have been in use for decades on all the other trucks out there and will clearly be invalid. If they cover the unique design elements that make their design different than every other truck on the road out there I see little similarity between Nicola and Tesla.
Ultimately the company is upset for two reasons, poaching employees (whaaaaa, baby want a bottle), and the fact that Tesla is stealing all the big clients with a big rig that's better designed, isn't tied to Hydrogen and will be cheaper to run and operate using known and proven technology. Nicola on the other hand has a truck that can only be refueled in 3 places, has fuel costs that are higher than diesel, is using fuel cells with unknown life spans and who knows what maintenance costs.
They're upset they picked the wrong horse with hydrogen and want to stop Tesla so they can try to get more sales. It's just marketing by lawyer and I hope Tesla stomps them in court.
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Nikola Motors should be worried about prior-art claims, given examples, like the MAN Concept S [blogspot.com] that was exhibited at the IAA show in Hanover in 2010; both the Nikola and Tesla designs look significantly derivative of MAN's work. And that was just from a casual Google search. If there wasn't so much prior art out there already, I'd patent 'filing lawsuits for outrageous damages using questionable patents to attempt to extract funding from competitor or cripple them as a competitor' as a business-model patent
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This is a german article: http://www.miles-styles.com/lu... [miles-styles.com]
But look at the pictures and google for Luigi Colani, those design studies are 50 years old or older.
Nikola will have bad luck with prior art.
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Personally having looked at the Tesla and Nicola pictures I think the trucks don't look anything alike when you account for the things that have to be the same
Personally I think they look incredibly similar. Personally I also think they are nothing more of a natural progression of the current offerings. E.g. think Volvo VNL with rounded edges.
Prior art should be findable in pretty much every futuristic movie or drawing.
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If Nicola's design patents cover these items they are covering design elements that have been in use for decades on all the other trucks out there and will clearly be invalid. If they cover the unique design elements that make their design different than every other truck on the road out there I see little similarity between Nicola and Tesla.
No need to speculate -- the patents and the features they allegedly cover are all described in detail in the complaint I linked to above. Would you put, for example, the wraparound windshield in the "have been in use for decades on all the other trucks out there" bucket, or the "unique design element that make their design different than every other truck on the road out there" bucket?
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I don't think that's the definition of prior art.
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Look at pictures of the two trucks. The Tesla clearly has pillars between the side windows and windshield, they are just black and glossy to make them look more like glass.
The Nicola design wraps the glass around onto the side then has the pillar a foot back from the windshield.
In this case and all the other claims the Tesla and the Nicola look nothing alike. They are both an evolution of the standard truck designs from the last 10 years. Both trucks look more like some concept designs from 20 years ago tha
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Two things it occurs to me I forgot to mention.
First the biggest reason the two trucks are somewhat similar is that neither has to support installation of a 12 cylinder diesel engine. As a result the truck's don't need the extended engine compartment and have a flatter profile like the older trucks where the drive was on top of the engine rather than behind it. This is purely a functional aspect that's the result of using an electric motor for drive.
The second is the design patent you cited about the wrap a
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I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a cool infographic about total cost of hydrogen. Basically, if you could pump pure hydrogen out of the ground and use it, it might be cost effective, but you have to pay to split water (or whatever other molecule you intend to get H from) then you gotta compress it, transport it, load it into the vehicle for use, and THEN you finally get to burn it for energy... the losses in that system are incredible. It's just not efficient.
Easy way to produce and store it (Score:2)
One can greatly reduce the cost of producing and storing hydrogen by using a little chemistry. Just wrap about 18 hydrogen atoms around 6 or 8 carbon atoms and you have a real convenient liquid fuel with extremely high energy density. Runs great in any ordinary car too. :)
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Hydrogen is not a fuel in the sense that petrol is.
It's an energy transport medium that has a 'fuel' stage so that existing infrastructure (esp. businesses) can adapt rather than being replaced.
Coal, gas, solar, hydro etc. are the energy source for hydrogen, same as for batteries. Better energy density might be possible with hydrogen fuel cells, but tying them to the existing fuel delivery process is an advantage for the incumbents only.
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Yeah Hydrogen is fucked, well and truly skewered, deceased, morte, a soon to be rotting corpse. Nearly every year, an announcement about better battery technology comes out, a new refinement, new materials all leading to greater storage capacity, more recharges and cheaper battery cost and it doesn't look like stopping soon https://www.eurekalert.org/pub... [eurekalert.org], hey look, hydrogen gas as waste.
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If you've ever seen how long a truck sits at a dock while the cargo is being loaded/unloaded you wouldn't say that. Except for long haul, battery powered trucks are perfectly suited for this, once infrastructure is put in place, and trust me, charging infrastructure is WAY cheaper than gas or diesel fueling infrastructure. Pretty much any place a truck wants to drive already has power, usually of the 220v/440v persuasion, so just about any electrician could install a charging unit next to a loading dock i
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Restricting "poaching" is restraint of trade. A lot of high-buck tech companies in California had their wrists lightly slapped for non-poaching agreements. It also has absolutely nothing legally to do with patents.
At least now we know... (Score:2)
At least now we know that "Nikola Motors" is neither now - nor will it ever be - a manufacturer of actual vehicles.
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Maybe this was a valid patent? I totally dislike our "anonymous reader" adding such blatant editorializing on the last line, and that the editor did not remove it is a sad thing. Let the readers decide on their own if it's patent abuse or now, and just present the facts. We have enough media out there already that is editorializing and calling it news, we don't need to replicate this everywhere.
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In our sad reality its cheaper to hire Columbian assassin to kill every current and replacement lawyers working for the patent troll in the span of next couple of years than paying for your own competent legat team and fighting a court battle.
Im really surprised we havent yet heard about patent troll law firms going dark/dead.
Re:It's not frivolous. (Score:5, Informative)
Nikola unveiled its hydrogen-powered semi in December 2016. Elon Musk first showed off the Tesla Semi last December. Once you start looking at the drawings in Nikola's patents, or compare photos of concept vehicles, you'll see that there are some similarities between the trucks. Nikola also alleges that Tesla reached out to poach an employee and doesn't hold any patents for its truck design compared to Nikola's half-dozen.
This is not a patent troll. This is a company who is competing with Tesla.
And I'm not saying that they are right and will win the case.
Re:It's not frivolous. (Score:5, Informative)
These are Design Patents (think Coke Bottle). While perfectly valid legal entities, I think the term 'patent' is a bit of misnomer. More of a trademark kind of thing.
Still, something to get lawyers all hot and bothered about.
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Design patents are always interesting, though, since Juries decide if it looks close enough to be violating the patent.
TFA's picture comparison is... well, dubious. If you ask me, the Nikola One looks a lot more like the bastard child of a Mistubishi Fuso and a Volvo Semi truck.
Nikola's model definitely looks more like Thor Trucks' model. [digitaltrends.com]
Honestly, I think the lawsuit is primarily to get PR. I had no idea they existed until today, so they've succeeded.
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I seem to recall hearing it’s a variant of a frequently used marketing con: do whatever you have to do to attach your name to a competitor’s, in order to get publicity.
For example, renaming your company to be the first name of Nikola Tesla, and then suing the familiar “Tesla” motor company for patent infringement.
Just let the news media gobble it up, drop the lawsuit, and pat yourself on the back for saving a few million dollars in advertising.
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If aspects of a design affect function, then it may fall under patent Territory.
The truck design is probably an aspect in its function, Aerodynamics, Different placements due to using Motors vs an Engine....
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Green on Green crime. Sad (nt) (Score:2)
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Who did they "poach"? The one employee who knows how to draw a truck?
If you read the Electrek article you'll see designs for similar alternative fuel trucks going back years or decades.
Tesla has at least 2 working trucks and they've been seen hundreds of miles away from the factories, running freight between Sparks & Fremont, broken down by the side of the road or plugged into a SuperCharger.
What does Nikola have to show after all these years?
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Exactly. This is not a case of a patent troll. In this case, there is a company actually working on something, and Tesla has been poaching their employees. From the article:
Nikola unveiled its hydrogen-powered semi in December 2016. Elon Musk first showed off the Tesla Semi last December. Once you start looking at the drawings in Nikola's patents, or compare photos of concept vehicles, you'll see that there are some similarities between the trucks. Nikola also alleges that Tesla reached out to poach an employee and doesn't hold any patents for its truck design compared to Nikola's half-dozen.
This is not a patent troll. This is a company who is competing with Tesla.
And I'm not saying that they are right and will win the case.
Most trucks look more or less the same. There is no truck out there that doesn't share "some similarities" with another.
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During the earnings call today Musk noted that transportation companies don't make decisions on purchasing semi's on how they look (or if they have wrap-around windshields). He also felt it was pretty ironic that a company with the name Nikola was suing Tesla.
Reading between the lines it sounds like even if Tesla had to modify its design it wouldn't have a material effect on their semi business because their customers don't actually care how they look. They are entirely coin operated.
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No word on the amazing coincidence of a vehicle manufacturing company called "Nicola" picking that name because of it's conspicuous proximity to the name "Tesla"? Not a troll my ass.
Re:It's not frivolous. (Score:5, Funny)
Tesla has electric cars powered by DC batteries.
Nikola has alternative fuel vehicles.
Just to confuse the hell out of everyone, someone needs to start an AC-powered car company called Edison.
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Tesla's motors run on AC juice. The DC from the battery is converted to AC to drive induction motors, something a guy called Nicola Tesla designed a lot of years ago.
Re:It's not frivolous. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey you, stop trying to introduce solid facts into my lame attempt at a weak joke.
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Yeah. My colleague always said: "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story."
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Of course they run on AC - otherwise they'd need brushes. But it's not the kind of AC power that Nikola Tesla had to deal with (fixed frequency, sine wave). In fact, if you are presented with Nikola Tesla's AC and you want to control a brushless motor in the same way that Tesla (the company) is, your first step will be to rectify it to DC.
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Didn't GM rename that car to Bolt?
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Re:It's not frivolous. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not as confusing as the Spark being gasoline powered. A reasonable person would expect it to follow in the footsteps of the other electrically-named cars.
Re: It's not frivolous. (Score:2, Funny)
Don't even get me started on the motherfucking Fusion... what a letdown
Re: It's not frivolous. (Score:2)
If your electric car is making sparks, there's probably a problem. Now spark plugs in an ICE vehicle, on the other hand ...
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That's funny right there!
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Yeah, it's a terrible name for a terrible car. It's like calling one the "squeak".
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And then patent a 3000 mile long extension cord
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only if their mascot is an elephant in the throes of anguish and agony.
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Google: Con-Edison.
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To the best of my knowledge they were the first auto maker to mass market:
+ the combination of lithium ion batteries and supercapacitors for their energy storage strategy
+ rely heavily on frequent over the air software updates to effect continuous improvement
+ sell directly to consumers with a more eCommerce centric model
+ a business model that generates a demand for an all electric vehicle that far outstrips production capacity
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It's time for you to open your eyes and look at the evidence. Learning a little basic science wouldn't hurt, either.
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Is it all right if I get a little nervous at the thought of a car with gas pressurized to 10K PSI getting into an accident near me?
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The solution is to use wooden beams. Those don't melt!
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I'm guessing you didn't notice that the Nikola One uses its hydrogen powered generator to charge on-board lithium ion batteries before you typed out that rant.
Why Bother? (Score:2)
According to Nikola, Tesla's truck is an impossible scam that will never work. So why bother suing a product that supposedly will never come to market?
Not a troll (Score:2, Insightful)
The patents may or may not be valid, but it is wrong to call Nikola a "patent troll". Patent trolls produce no product and are only a scam to collect money thru the courts. Nikola definitely has a business in this market segment. Please update the post and remove this line.
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Design Patents? (Score:2)
Are these design patents? The Blue Jeans Cable case [slashdot.org] comes to mind here. I suppose they look similar, but how many ways are there to style a semi-truck?
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They ARE design patents. Yes, they look similar. The question is going to be 'how similar'. Personally, I think they look like 'future trucks' from 1960's comic books.
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Actually they're both clearly derived from stormtrooper helmets.
And Lucasfilm now has the Disney Lawyer Horde at it's beck and call . . .
hawk
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I wonder how truck companies deal with this today. If I put a Mack and a Peterson truck side-by-side, I would imagine that very few people could tell the difference without looking at the name badge. I don't recall hearing about Nicola before today. Sounds like they are jealous of Tesla, and figure any publicity is good publicity.
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Why not reference everyone's favorite rounded corner patent case? (Because that also was a design patent).
Though, one thing with design patents is they are generally checklists - if your item has everything in the checklist, it's violating the patent. If you change one thing so it's similar, but not covered by the patent, it's no longer violating.
Hence, rounded corners with a grid of icons for a display with said grid featuring a row of
Yup, on the conference call day (Score:2)
Okay, now I'm confused. (Score:2)
Nikola claims that these design similarities have "caused confusion" among customers and stolen away over $2 billion in business,
Doesn't one say "Tesla" and the other "Nikola" on the sides and grilles?
Patent Troll? (Score:2)
I thought the plaintiff is only considered a troll if they have no products using the patented feature or design. From the summary, it sounds like Nikola does use these things. It also sounds as if they might design patents, but that's not pertinent to the question of troll.
Yeah, driving around... (Score:2)
This sounds like trolling of the worst and banal kind.
look like Storm Trooper helmets Disney will sue (Score:2)
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Nope... Cylon Raiders are the best prior art.
Design .vs. Utility (Score:2)
Nothing rises to the level of a utility patent with regard to door placement, windscreen curvature, bodyside skirting on a vehicle. At best they will resort to design patentability. Even then body skirts are prior works known in the trade and obvious to the craft in all three embodiments.
BUT its fabulous exposure and marketing may be able to be patented trading on naming conventions for protection arguing that obvious commonalities are confusing in the marketplace if not the USPTO
Confusion? Which they sought themselves! (Score:2)
Maybe Tesla could counter-sue to strip them from their company name?
All in all, all this kind of litigation isn't productive at all. Sad really.
Prior Art (Score:2)
Dubious (Score:2)
Fuselage design is just what you get when you stick a semi in a windtunnel and take things one step beyond conventional models. Every 'advanced concept' truck looks like this. And the two designs don't look all that similar beyond the outer mold line.
Wraparound windshield: meh. The idea is old (look at current Scanias for instance), it's just that they usually have the doors further forward.
Which leaves us with the only innovation: the mid-entry door. I don't see truckers enjoying this one, esp. if you're w
Who? Oh wait, I see what they are doing. (Score:2)
I'd never heard of Nikola Motors until now.
Someone once told me there's no such thing as bad publicity.
Usually it's politicians who pull this trick by grandstanding on some "issue"
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Wrap around windshield (Score:2)
http://image.trucktrend.com/f/... [trucktrend.com]
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Oh Man, Despicable Me is gonna get sued by GM now!
They're nothing alike (Score:2)
The CEO of Nikola, a Mr Shorten Cologne, was not available for comment.
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Sounds pretty ridiculous (Score:2)
Conversely if a Nikola truck goes up in smoke I doubt anyone will confuse it with a Tesla truck.
Aside from that, anyone who has paid attention to trucks, or played truck sim games knows that they're really a product of function over form - the cab is over the engine or behind it. Trucks are designed to largely interchange so vehicles can hitch to and haul d
What really matters is why these companies exist. (Score:2)
Capitalism aside I hope these companies came into existence in order to try and solve the worlds dependency on fossil fuels and usher in a new era of using renewables. Petty fighting does nothing to solve these issues and only increases the barrier of entry to those whose conscience is to make the world a better place.
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Hmm, I wonder if a discussion about the President of the USA colluding with Russia's computer hacking attack on the DNC and other American targets is worth of a "News for Nerds" website.
No? Too stupid to talk about hacking that crosses over into treason?
Ok, let's talk about some small-time lawsuit instead.
It's worse than that even... This article and it's headline IMPLIES a connection to a Nikola Tesla patent on AC motors... Such patents have expired over 100 years ago..
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Lets talk about how the DNC hack was an inside job. Hmm, I wonder if anyone remembers that part where file metadata showed the mail dump was copied from the server to a USB drive.
No? Don't remember who Seth Rich is?
Ok, lets circle jerk to the left's favorite conspiracy theory instead.
For those not up to speed on the latest conspiracy theories, it's been alleged that the DNC hack was an inside job. One of the "facts" supporting this theory is that the files were being transferred at 22.7 MB/s (based on file timestamps) faster than what could reasonably be expected over a standard internet connection at the time. However, it completely ignores the possibilities that there was fast internet available at the time, the ability to download multiple files to multiple computers (i.e. like a b
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Could have also been zipped before transfer, the time stamps are just how long it took to unzip and write the files. Seriously, that was a conspiracy theory? Lame...
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Somebody actually trusts Wikileaks? Besides, Russia isn't what Assange has said he's hiding from in his incarceration in the Ecuadorian embassy.
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Actually, for a design patent I think that's a valid point. Whether it's an accurate one is a separate question.
Also there should be a question as to whether the patent is valid. There has been the question raised above this in the list as to whether the trucks in 1960's comic books count as prior art, and there could well be other examples.
So I think they should lose the case, even though "confusion in commerce" is probably a valid argument.
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Well, two of these pretty much are the product of wind tunnel testing, aren't they? Pretty much why every sedan looks identical these days?
And, um, moving the location of a door? Is this a patentable invention?
These are design patents, so "inventiveness" doesn't really enter the debate. One question that will come up is how functional are the elements in the patent? Design patents must be on purely non-functional aspects; effectively, design patents are more like trademarks than utility patents. If the first two are because they're the most aerodynamic shape, they would be functional elements that can't be covered by design patents. The design patent on the location of the door is more likely to be valid, dependi
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