71–80 of 328 posts
Separately using the "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" meme (as has been pointed out below by peterarmstrong ) appears to be a clear "in your face" to "the man".
Most people I would imagine aren't aware of this meme (I wasn't) and using it in a public press release seems a bit odd to me.
Assuming that this search represents nearly all of them, that is approximately 133 patents: https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee:%22T... Edit: Nice catch, peter_l_downs ... I didn't realize that the estimated search result of 6,430 would be off by such a large factor.
How many times in the past has a private company opened up its core patents for everyone to use? There aren't that many precedences.
"Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." What exactly does that little "in good faith" clause mean in there?
People are optimistic but I'm with you. For example, using the Supercharger network requires that the automotive company offer energy for free for life to customers, and charge up front at the point of sale for all energy requirements for the life of the vehicle. That's Musk's business model and is enforcing it for anyone who wants to use his "open infrastructure". Which is bollocks to me: only wealthy people buying…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mr Musk, I expected better grammar from you.
It's a meme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base
There is no legal covenant here. I imagine Tesla’s definition of “good faith” is “we evaluate on a case by case basis”. Which amounts to “if we like you” and “we reserve the right”. If they wanted these patents to be open source, they would license them explicitly.
They have definitely left a lot of wiggle room and you'd be crazy to build stuff based on their patents without a licensing agreement, but I think this signals that they are very open to licensing their technology, and are not trying to "build a moat". This would be a lot more interesting if they were willing to state the terms on which they are willing to license the patents, but there are probably complex legal iss…
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Would this not be a get out of court free card in any lawsuit Tesla would try to start?
I suspect that an ambiguously-worded blog post would not be legally binding.
There is no legal covenant here. I imagine Tesla’s definition of “good faith” is “we evaluate on a case by case basis”. Which amounts to “if we like you” and “we reserve the right”. If they wanted these patents to be open source, they would license them explicitly.
They would be on the receiving end of a PR shitstorm if they tried to enforce their patents after publishing this.
Sounds to me like the "in good faith" clause is to retain the patents for a defense should someone try to come after Telsa for infringing. Quite an interesting business move and pretty unprecedented as far as I know, at least for a non-software company. Presumably he is hoping that this will encourage improvement to infrastructure. He is also probably thinking he can build higher quality cars and cheaper than others,…
That is certainly the most plausible reading of that phrase, but it still seems like it could be put into a licence pretty easily, along the lines of "User of these patents hereby relinquishes all claims of infringement against Tesla Motors for any patents the user may own or license".
i could be totally off the mark though
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They would be on the receiving end of a PR shitstorm if they tried to enforce their patents after publishing this.
True, but if you were Gigantic Auto Manufacturer, would you build these patents into a billion-dollar factory without a stronger guarantee that Tesla won't about-face in 5-10 years? I wouldn't risk it.