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All Our Patent Are Belong To You

teslamotors.com

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Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#221

Post by lotsofmangos »

rayiner wrote: post #101

I love Elon Musk, and kudos to them for doing this, but it's useful to read between the lines: > Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. This is consistent with my view of how engineers in the traditional disciplines view patents. > At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use th…

This is the precise thing that patents are designed to prevent: to keep the market from turning into a race to see who can outsource most efficiently to China and inundate the public most completely with advertising.

Patents were largely designed to enable the state to have a selectively published library of what was being invented in the country and to reduce the power of trade guilds, who had huge power at the time. Offering a limited monopoly backed by force of law was one of the few incentives that worked for acquiring access to the kind of trade secrets you needed to keep your edge on the battlefield.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#222

Post by sitkack »

yonran wrote: post #153
sitkack wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IV could be what Tesla and SpaceX is, but Myhrvold is an empire building twit. The people he hires leave to do better things because the things they do are not good. So much wasted human capital.

I wasn’t comparing Tesla to IV, I was comparing another auto manufacturer to IV. The point is, no one wants to be the chump offering their own patents on FRAND terms while the competition is not playing fair. And the ways that a competitor might play unfairly are probably impossible to enumerate in a single blanket license, thus necessitating the vague language of the blog post.

I understand. Most other auto manufacturers will start acting pretty oddly as their businesses collapse. I would almost expect them to form a patent pool to keep another electric car company, think Saturn, sprouting up and furthering their demise.

Does the US Govt still hold car company debt? Things could get really weird...

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#223

Post by bld »

This is one of the most clear & succinct - and more importantly high exposure - statements on the value of open source that I've seen to date. The same message from other sectors like 3D printing has been thoroughly muddied by the proprietary side of the market - who have benefited from the expiration of key patents & widespread open source designs.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#224

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pyre wrote: post #219
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting attempt. The problem I'm seeing is that it seems to do nothing about non-practicing entities, or to prevent the sort of thing Microsoft et al have done with Rockstar, essentially paying to license a bunch of questionable patents with the foreseeable effect of giving the non-practicing entity enough cash to create a menace for their competitors. What could be an interesting solution is to prevent p…

> Microsoft et al have done with Rockstar It is my understanding that Rockstar existed prior to Microsoft and others getting involved. They merely footed the bill.

Pretty sure that's what I said. Is that supposed to absolve them?

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#226

Post by vacri »

It's not all give, there is some take. By bringing other manufacturers on board, Tesla gets more assistance in building their recharging network, which is a formidable undertaking. Similarly, the more manufacturers of viable electric vehicles there are, the more mainstream they are, and the larger the overall pie. Tesla does stand to gain something out of sharing.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#227

Post by gfodor »

natural219 wrote: post #115

If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some people, at least, can rise above petty human squabbling and competition and are legitimately working to better humanity -- look no further than this thread. Every top comment is a skeptical one. "This is clearly a great PR move, but has no teeth." "How do you enforce this guarantee?" Etc. These are reasonable questions, bu…

Agreed. This site is toxic, if it's any consolation in day-to-day discussions with people in Silicon Valley actually doing things I've found nothing but respect and awe of what Tesla and SpaceX are doing. I wouldn't take HN to heart too much, the people actually getting shit done are not posting cynical comments on HN. (Myself included, I've been building less than usual the last year and spending too much time here.)

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#228

Post by ihatecommenting »

Finally Good PR actually means doing something good! hopefully companies/firms will do more advertising, marketing and PR that consists of contributing value to society and CSR. This will hopefully also shake up the awful inefficiencies within charities (not taking anything from the amazing work they do) instead of polishing a turd or diverting money to ads.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#229

Post by tonygan »

I am more interested in the mentioning of "the spirit of the open source" part. Just image that if one day we are in a world that full of all those "open source electronic cars", to me it will just be too beautiful to see.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#230

Post by burnte »

patio11 wrote: post #158

So an informal non-aggression pact is nice, but absolutely no automobile manufacturer would rely on that when a new car costs a significant fraction of a billion dollars to bring to market. (If I were a cynical man, I might think this didn't escape their notice.) If it were me, and the true intent was to distribute the Tesla patents as widely as possible, I would have said "Tesla pledges to license its entire patent…

Nothing stops any company from now going to Tesla, aware that Tesla is open to a highly favorable licensing agreement, and propose just such a move.
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