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Ford Stole Tech for Best-Selling Trucks from MIT, Professors Say
- Animats 8y agoThe patents (8,069,839, 9,255,519, 9,810,166, and 10,138,826) are strange. Each describes a system where both gasoline and ethanol are available in separate tanks and the mixing is controlled to minimize knock. That's a dead end as a commercial product. The claims, though, were drafted to cover a system where the fuel enters the cylinder through both a port and direct injection, allowing some tweaking. It's a stretch to claim these patents cover a single-fuel engine. Ford can probably argue that the claims are not supported by the specification.
- jhallenworld 8y agoAside from this patent dispute, it's interesting to see if there are any innovations left for ICEs. I know one idea is camless: https://hackaday.com/2016/02/16/where-are-all-the-camless-engines/ https://hackaday.com/2016/02/16/where-are-all-the-camless-en...
- phasetransition 8y agoSince the article is not helpful on details: A Delaware docket search indicates the patents in question are US 8,069,839 B2 ;US 9,255,519 B2 ;US 9,810,166 B2 ;US 10,138,826 B2 The 826 issued end of November, 2018. Independent claims 12, 21, and 31 are for dual injection system engines. Given that Bloomberg indicate only infringement of one patent, I speculate that is the 826 patent issued in late 2018. Now that 826 is issued, they are able to pursue. 826 is a continuation filing in the family that starts with 7,314,033. I haven't looked at the family, nor tried to make any appraisal of merit.
- phasetransition 8y agoHaving now looked at the 826 patent, I'm inclined to agree with Animats' comment elsewhere in this thread regarding the claims vs. the specification, which plainly shows two separate fuel systems that hold two different fuel types.
- greglindahl 8y agoThere doesn't appear to be any claim that Ford directly incorporated any MIT research into their engines? Simultaneous invention happens, and broad patent claims make it even more likely.
- Hongwei 8y agoCurious to see how this goes. IANAL, but wondering why it's taken 3-4 years for this claim to surface? Is there a statute of limitations on IP infringement? If I'm Ford, I surely would have triple checked every IP angle before putting a new technology in every single vehicle I make. So I'm just guessing that there was some original arrangement which now looks inadequate for the inventors. That or Ford's lawyers messed up in a big way. Just speculating of course.
- kposehn 8y agoIt can take a long time for a lawsuit to actually happen. There's a lot of ways to drag out negotiations over a patent and it can be a while before both parties can't come to an agreement, resulting in a suit being filed.
- ceejayoz 8y agoYup. One of the best examples of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns A clearly novel invention (intermittent windshield wipers) that took decades and more than $10M legal fees to get paid for.
- ortusdux 8y agoTo be fair, Kearns did represent himself for most of that legal battle. I sure the cases would have been settled much more quickly had he been backed by MIT's lawyers.
- CamperBob2 8y agoIf I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never understand how that was considered "novel." But that's just me.
- ceejayoz 8y agoLots of inventions like this seem obvious in hindsight.
- gotocake 8y ago“Greedy inventors” Said the car company exec... Jesus what balls. Still, MIT isn’t exactly small and lacking funding, so I’d expect this to drag on until an inevitable undisclosed settlement.
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- devoply 8y agoI know a country in the East which feels the same way about American companies.
- decebalus1 8y agoI know a country in the West which used to feel the same way about European companies
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- throwaway98121 8y agoHa! I work with some talented engineers at a big tech company. This topic sort of came up at a happy hour event. Their culture is different. In the west, we think you’re really something if you invent or innovate something on your own. Their view is it doesn’t matter if you take something from someone because you still have to work to do something with the concept or technology. I get their perspective. On one hand, yeah it sucks if you work hard or invest massive capital to innovate in some area. On the other hand, if your economy is at an advantage, others in the emerging world are left behind and they’ll always be playing catch up, paying royalties, or locked out completely.
- thereare5lights 8y agoDon't bother, the anti-Chinese sentiment on HN is rampant and mods don't care.
- rootusrootus 8y agoSo they say they own a patent for dual port- and direct-injection? It will be interesting to see how it plays out; Ford is hardly the only company using the technique on their DI engines. I also wonder if it will pass a sniff test -- is using traditional port injection on a DI engine novel enough to be patented? I guess I can see where it might be, but what a low bar for innovation we have.
- Guvante 8y agoCombining technologies can be tricky and it is usually worthwhile to look a little deeper when you are doing it at what the patent is claiming.
- codinger 8y agoI wouldn't think it's novel enough. Toyota and Subaru have been using it for years. I had no idea Ford was doing this as well. It's a good idea. The port injection prevents carbon buildup on the valves and ports.
- jhallenworld 8y agoI have a DI engine (Volkswagen 2.0 TSI), the carbon build-up is very annoying / expensive. I think they still have not fixed it, but not entirely sure: https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?6984506-What-Happened-To-The-Dual-Injected-EA888 https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?6984506-What-Happ...
- codinger 8y agoOh yeah, I used to have a used BMW with an N54 engine with the same issue. I ended up buying a media blaster, crushed walnut shells and cleaned up the ports preemptively.
- justtopost 8y agoCRC intake cleaner seems to work the OK for a homegamer solution. Make sure to follow directions, as they are not obvious. Best used every 20k or so on GDI engines.
- jkqwzsoo 8y agoI’m confused as to who actually owns the patents. The title says “Ford stole tech [...] from MIT, professors say”, but the lawsuit is “Ethanol Boosting Systems LLC v. Ford Motor Co.”. I’m not certain how IP rights works at MIT, but if the patents are owned by MIT, wouldn’t MIT be the party that needs to sue? If so, why is it instead “Ethanol Boosting Systems”? Does MIT feel that MIT IP was stolen?
- wapoamspomw 8y agoFrom the article: >The professors transferred ownership of their creations to MIT, one of the premier U.S. research universities, which then granted exclusive patent-licensing rights to a small company the three men founded, Ethanol Boosting Systems LLC. EBS offered to license patents on the enhancements to Ford in 2014, but the company declined. If EBS doesn't get paid, then MIT doesn't get paid.
- jaak 8y agoI'm curious as to who funded the research in the first place.
- i386 8y agoUniversity research divisions are usually spun out as commercial entities around a technology that was developed. Ethanol Boosting Systems LLC is owned by MIT.
- exabrial 8y agoMIT patented a method and device to make the most useless interior electronics package and noisy experience for passengers?
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoI wish journalists would stop using the "theft" metaphor for patent infringement. It's misleading and wrong, especially when there are other forms of IP malfeasance (e.g. theft of trade secrets) that are much more appropriately called "theft".
- goldenkey 8y agoJust another patent troll, MIT isnt immune or righteous - look what they did to Aaron Schwartz. The patent in question describes a two tank system with separate gasoline and ethanol. Afaik, Ford is not doing anything like that.
- watergatorman 8y agoI am not taking sides, because today's Ford Co is not saddled with Henry Ford's controversies, and both MIT and Ford are large organizations. I don't know who is right, a jury might decide. There is an interesting movie, "Flash of Genius," about Robert Kearns, an inventor and his interactions with Ford over the "delayed windshield wiper." I won't reveal any details over the movie plot but there is a short scene where Kearns is lecturing his engineering students about engineering ethics, which reminds me of a documentary by PBS: "NOVA: Holocaust on Trial" (2000) I cannot find this last movie anywhere, but <youtube> has it available. Should be mandatory viewing for engineers, but it is difficult to watch or listen to the details.
- tabtab 8y agoThe delayed windshield wiper case is not cut and dry (no pun intended). With solid-state electronics (SSE), a delay circuit using capacitors is relatively easy to create. Patents are supposed to be "non-obvious". SSE's were relatively new in the early 60's, but once people got practical experience with them, a delay circuit is obvious to practitioner in that line of work, which in theory should make it non-patentable. It's kind of like "doing X on the Web" patents where X itself is common and/or unpatentable. Adding web-ness shouldn't change the patentability of X, but for some odd reason it has. When new parts and tools come along, they make the mundane possibly seem innovative for a while until people or judges understand that the new tools are not magic. The web-based-auction patents are an example. They simply automated manual auctions; any programmer/analyst with industry experience can do that. Running it in a browser didn't make it special, but that apparently bedazzled patent reviewers. (Copyrights can cover look and feel, but I'm talking about functionality.) The patent office simply does not take seriously, "must be non-obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art". If 90% of experienced programmer/analysts can code up a web auction system, it's not obvious.
- eggy 8y agoThe Ford-MIT Alliance began in 1998. I wonder how much, if any, of Ford's money paid for the research by the MIT professors[1]claiming patent on their research. I would be surprised if MIT-Ford didn't have a lot of legalese set down for just such an occurrence. MIT has been closely tied to industry for good and bad. [1] http://ssrc.mit.edu/programs/ford-mit-alliance http://ssrc.mit.edu/programs/ford-mit-alliance
- erickj 8y ago'“We sold 1 million F-Series last year,” Thai-Tang said. “Our PR team did the math. We sell one every 29 seconds.”' r/theydidthemath