Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's 4th grade US history curriculum.
most people don't live in the US
Approximately 100% of people under the jurisdiction of US patent law and influenced by the American auto industry do.
All Our Patent Are Belong To You
271–280 of 328 posts
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#272I 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…
Seems weird that you would have them publicly published for your enemies to read if that were the sole motivation.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#273There 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.
I'm curious about this. To what degree is a CEO writing and publicly distributing the statement, "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." legally binding? "In good faith" actually strikes me as reasonably interpretable by a court, so I guess the question is just how much "he said so in a blog post" counts. I'd love to hear a lawyer weigh in on this.
Lawyer here. Just very quickly, (i) a CEO's blog post itself is not legally binding on the company by nature, but it is a reflection of a corporate decision (typically the Board of Directors)behind the post. An action of this nature can only be challenged in court by the shareholders or dissenting board members in certain cases. (ii) a legal patent holder has every right of disposal over the patent, including the act of revoking it. (iii)I did not look for precedents for this but if a different company would re-issue Tesla's designs on their own name and tried to sue Tesla (i.e. trolling), I have serious doubts concerning not only on whether such revoked patents can be re-issued in somebody elses name but also, assuming thats possible, any judge or court would award any penalties to the original patent author in such lawsuit.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you make it easy to copy innovative designs, companies can really only compete on lower manufacturing costs and more advertising.[1] That's why engineering firms pushed for stronger IP protections through the WTO in the 1990's: Chinese and Korean companies were copying the designs of Cisco, etc, and undercutting them on prices because they didn't have any R&D expenses. [1] At least when you're talking about phys…
That's all true, but it still doesn't follow that patents themselves prevent competition on cost. For example, if a non-practicing patent holder licensed their patent to all interested parties, then the licensees must also compete on cost. So far as I can tell, patents were explicitly designed to allow that scenario, among others.
The licenser is afforded the freedom to sell licenses at whatever price they choose, because they have a monopoly on the IP which is being licensed.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#275If 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…
Thank you.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always thought that Apple is driven by wanting to control its own destiny and not have the short term interests of the market dictate its decisions. That's why it is stockpiling cash and hesitating to pay it out to its shareholders. Apple and Tesla just want to make great stuff. Not just great, esoteric stuff, but products that are also accessible to the mainstream. The profits are just a way of keeping score an…
I believe that the various employees at Apple and Tesla, like lots of employees at lots of companies, are there because they enjoy what they do and want to make and do great things. That includes technical and executive staff. But the overall business goal is to make money, because unless they're making money they employees will not be able to continue making great things or doing great things.
This seems about as meaningful as saying the employees' overall goal is to eat food, because without food their bodies will not be able to continue doing great things.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always thought that Apple is driven by wanting to control its own destiny and not have the short term interests of the market dictate its decisions. That's why it is stockpiling cash and hesitating to pay it out to its shareholders. Apple and Tesla just want to make great stuff. Not just great, esoteric stuff, but products that are also accessible to the mainstream. The profits are just a way of keeping score an…
I've always thought that Apple is driven by wanting to control its own destiny and not have the short term interests of the market dictate its decisions. That's why it is stockpiling cash and hesitating to pay it out to its shareholders. There are a million reasons why I really want to like Apple. But I can't, because they use mostly trivial patents offensively against their competitors. That's not controlling one's…
It's fascinating how any post even mildly critical of Apple manages to get downvoted.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#278one who takes patent for buttons should learn from tesla's move.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoting a good but dead comment for visibility: citrik 10 minutes ago | link [dead] I don't think the "in business to make profits" part is entirely true. Apple and Tesla are both leading examples of companies that are out for something other than profits first. You can say that shareholder interests and publicly traded companies require ... but at the end of the day those are two companies that don't let capitalist…
What are Apple and Tesla trying for, if not profits? Both are certainly great at leveraging marketing and PR announcements like this to appear as some kind of shining pillar of goodness, but at the end of the day they're both businesses. Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yowHM6nqu60
All companies strive for profits, but some take a more short term view than others.
Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You
#280If it was anyone else I'd be a lot more skeptical. There is something different about this guy so he might just mean exactly what we would like him to mean. Mmm hmm, yeah, I'm going to stay positive until proven I shouldn't be.