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That was a trojan horse offer. Tesla required anyone accepting the deal to give up their right to ever sue tesla over any patent infringement of any kind. Any
by theluketaylor 5y ago
That was a trojan horse offer. Tesla required anyone accepting the deal to give up their right to ever sue tesla over any patent infringement of any kind. Any automaker's legal department that allowed their boss to sign that would have needed to be immediately fired.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoI specifically remember Elon stating that anyone could just use the technology without even informing Tesla, so I looked it up: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5-401b-b80d-36473d0754c7 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5... Indeed, there are no documents for executives to sign, but the patents aren't exactly fully free to use either: Tesla promised not to sue any company infringing on its patents as long as they're acting in "good faith," which obviously has a bunch of caveats (one being that you can't sue Tesla over any other patent related issues). The end result is the same: a decent idea ruined by the lawyers.
- rsynnott 5y ago> a decent idea ruined by the lawyers. Or, more cynically, a publicity stunt, facilitated by lawyers. A lot of "look, you can use our patents!" things fall under this umbrella; they're devised in such a way that the company gets some publicity, but no-one can realistically use the patents.
- derekp7 5y agoSo it was essentially a cross-licensing deal that allowed other automakers to use Tesla charging tech (did this include other Tesla-owned patents?), but the others would effectively have to license their entire patent portfolio to Tesla (can't sue is not too far from a blanket license to use).