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Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#81

Post by jacquesm »

wlesieutre wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's a very small group of people. If you had taken a straw poll of 10 truckers three weeks ago I highly doubt any of them would have been able to name them.

Ok, but they also had 7000 preorders in a month with $1500 deposits ($10.5 million total), so it's not like the trucking industry hasn't heard of them.

That's not the argument they make. They argue that they will be associated with battery fires because of superficial resemblance of their exterior designs.

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#82

Post by mark-r »

atonse wrote: post #66
LukeShu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 3 are design patents, which are patents on non-functional ornamental design of functional items. They aren't patenting side doors, they are patenting the way the side doors look.

Still shouldn't be patentable. I understand if you're trying to prevent counterfeit. But Tesla trucks aren't trying to pass off as Nikola trucks or whatever vaporware that company has. Pure patent troll rubbish.

Maybe rubbish, but if it's legal rubbish then there's a problem. Our patent system is screwed up beyond belief.

I had thought that maybe design patents were a new thing, but a little research shows they aren't. The first was in 1842, and the Coke bottle in 1915 is a notable example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

The only ray of light is that a design patent is invalid if the design has a functional benefit.

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#83

Post by FireBeyond »

jacquesm wrote: post #79
FireBeyond wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Tesla does have good name recognition with the general public and Nikola (coincidence?) does not. Still entirely unsure what relevance general public knowledge of a company has to do with the validity of their patents...

They are design patents , not patents for technology.

Again, in this case or any other, _what relevance_ does the size, or general public's knowledge of a company ("who has ever heard of these guys?") have to the _validity_ of their patents?

This was the very first point of your argument. "No-one's really heard of these guys". What's the response to this? "Yeah, no way they could have a valid patent, in that case!"

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#84

Post by OedipusRex »

walrus01 wrote: post #51
LukeShu wrote: post #34

For those wanting to evaluate whether they think the Tesla Semi infringes on the patents, the 3 patents are: U.S. Pat. D811,944 (issued March 6, 2018) on fuselage shape http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/44/119/D08/0.pdf U.S. Pat. D811,968 (issued March 6, 2018) on wrap windshield http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/68/119/D08/0.pdf U.S. Pat. D816,004 S (issued April 24, 2018) on side doors http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/04/1…

How you can patent the shape of a fuselage is nuts, when it should be easy to show prior art for wind tunnel work by others going back to the early 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

gzu wrote: post #80
LukeShu wrote: post #34

For those wanting to evaluate whether they think the Tesla Semi infringes on the patents, the 3 patents are: U.S. Pat. D811,944 (issued March 6, 2018) on fuselage shape http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/44/119/D08/0.pdf U.S. Pat. D811,968 (issued March 6, 2018) on wrap windshield http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/68/119/D08/0.pdf U.S. Pat. D816,004 S (issued April 24, 2018) on side doors http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/04/1…

So these were all issued just recently in 2018? Were they submitted after the Telsa semi prototype has been known to the public? That’s been at least a year or so.

> So these were all issued just recently in 2018?

Yes.

> Were they submitted after the Telsa semi prototype has been known to the public?

No, the Tesla prototype was unveiled in November 2017; these were all filed on Dec. 30, 2015, as is prominently shown in the documents linked by GP.

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#86

Post by JustSomeNobody »

jacquesm wrote: post #56
wlesieutre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (1) who had ever heard of 'Nikola' before this Previous discussion of Nikola on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11683508 I think most people who follow electric vehicles at all seriously have heard of them.

Sure, but that's a very small group of people. If you had taken a straw poll of 10 truckers three weeks ago I highly doubt any of them would have been able to name them.

Don't be so sure:

https://www.overdriveonline.com/

https://www.roadking.com/truckers/whats-down-the-road/

https://www.truckersnews.com/?s=nikola

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

NeutronStar wrote: post #75
LukeShu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 3 are design patents, which are patents on non-functional ornamental design of functional items. They aren't patenting side doors, they are patenting the way the side doors look.

It doesn't even look the same, it's square and goes up to floor level for Tesla, Nikola's is round and doesn't go all the way down. And they barely patented it like a week ago. This is pure trolling.

> And they barely patented it like a week ago.

The patent applications were filed on Dec. 30, 2015.

Patent applications aren't granted overnight.

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#88

Post by dragonwriter »

atonse wrote: post #66
LukeShu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 3 are design patents, which are patents on non-functional ornamental design of functional items. They aren't patenting side doors, they are patenting the way the side doors look.

Still shouldn't be patentable. I understand if you're trying to prevent counterfeit. But Tesla trucks aren't trying to pass off as Nikola trucks or whatever vaporware that company has. Pure patent troll rubbish.

The fact that Samsung phones were not trying to pass themselves off as Apple phones didn't protect them from being successfully sued over Apple design patents, so I'm not sure why the same thing would protect Tesla from Nikola.

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#89

Post by jacquesm »

FireBeyond wrote: post #83
jacquesm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are design patents , not patents for technology.

Again, in this case or any other, _what relevance_ does the size, or general public's knowledge of a company ("who has ever heard of these guys?") have to the _validity_ of their patents? This was the very first point of your argument. "No-one's really heard of these guys". What's the response to this? "Yeah, no way they could have a valid patent, in that case!"

My point is that this is either a use a lawsuit for PR purposes thing or a shakedown attempt. Their design patents, for want of a better word, suck. Besides, neither company has an actual product out (though Tesla has some prototypes, and Nikola has at least one) making this even more of a farce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb9cC2VHhyo

Re: Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors

#90

Post by Maybestring »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #32
busterarm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of patent trolling is the filing of obviously bogus patents like these to begin with.

These are design patents. They can't be bogus if they are sufficiently original. The Tesla design looks pretty damn similar to the Nikola.

In the terms in which design patents apply, they don't look alike. The lines are off by several feet.
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