I started my career in the chip business. All large semiconductor shops realised in the late 60s/ early 70s that they could destroy any competition via patent l

I started my career in the chip business. All large semiconductor shops realised in the late 60s/ early 70s that they could destroy any competition via patent lawsuits - TI has the transistor, IBM the CPU, Intel the microprocessor, multiple fab process inventions, etc , etc. So they generally agreed patent swap agreements (not sure if this was via an organisation, or bilaterals) to avoid just giving all their money to lawyers. Today you write a patent as a defensive weapon (you sue me, I’ll sue you) or as a way for your start up to have residual value when it dies on the vine and your VCs sell the IP to a troll. So, seems that Tesla has enough IP to avoid other car firms from taking them out (probably GM has patent on using 4 wheels) … but no large firm / real competitor will dance unless they follow the chip business “all in” model.