Tesla Seems To Recognize That Its Own Patents Are Holding Back Innovation
from the because-that's-how-patents-work dept
While the details aren't entirely clear yet, there are reports that the company is likely to "open up" or "give away" some of its patents on its Supercharger system in an effort to create a standard that other electric car makers can use. Elon Musk has been hinting at doing something "fairly controversial" with the company's patents for a little while now. The really tragic thing is that this should not be controversial. Anyone who's studied the history of innovation knows how badly patents get in the way of standardization. There often is long and involved fights over how patents fit into standards, with debates about fees and "RAND" pricing. Fights break out over whose patents get included, and then giant bureaucracies spring up around who gets to manage various patent pools, and how money gets distributed. And all of it slows down the actual innovation process.And this is a problem.
Hopefully, the rumors are accurate, and Tesla really is freeing up its patents, because Musk has always been a more visionary sort. He must realize that the business is selling the cars, and any advance that makes the cars themselves more useful makes them more valuable, and widespread infrastructure that helps his cars and which he doesn't have to pay for is only a good thing in the long run. For too long, the "typical" business wisdom from those who are too focused on permission-driven innovation is that you have to lock up everything. But toll booths create friction and slow down the opportunities for real innovation. It would be great to see Musk do "something controversial" like this, even if it's ridiculously depressing that this idea is considered even remotely controversial.
Monetizing each step of the process, even if it limits the overall market is what should be seen as controversial -- rather than sharing knowledge and encouraging others to build upon a shared standard that increases opportunities for the entire market.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: electric cars, elon musk, innovation, patents, standards
Companies: tesla
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Re: Visionary
One of the thing that strikes me about this is the amount of time that Musk "held" these patents is for exactly the amount of time that they needed to be held to serve their legitimate purpose (so that he could get the product on the market), and no longer. That is patents done right.If you hold and enforce your patents longer than that, it's a clear sign that your product failed.
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just like basic Internet protocols
Standards are a lot less likely to have competitors when everyone can see (and even more so contribute to) the community efforts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If you were able to do away with those items, suddenly the public would be more amiable to adoption. New tech cars that don't depend on the present infrastructure all have this hold back. A couple of the car companies are planning on introducing new cars running on hydrogen. They are not likely to be adopted any more than electric cars for the same reasons.
This is where Musk is coming from. If he doesn't have to pay to put in a nation wide recharge point for his cars, it is much more likely the public will embrace his products. Not to mention if he gets this done early enough he stands a great chance of it becoming a standard configuration. He would not have to redesign his plugs to fit someone's recharge point but rather all recharge stations would have his design that would automatic just fit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Which really shouldn't be surprising or controversial at all. Afterall, gasoline-powered cars have had a completely standardized interface for "recharging" for decades, to the point where some manufacturers build upon it as a security feature.
For example, my car won't open the gas tank inlet if what I'm pressing against it doesn't exactly fit the correct size for a gas nozzle, which I found out much to my chagrin when it refused to let me refuel at an older gas station with a slightly banged-up pump. In a minor panic (I still had a quarter-tank left) I took it to the nearest dealership for repairs, and the guy explained it's an anti-siphoning feature and I should just go to another gas station and it should work. And it did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I remember in one comment where someone had the stupidity to say they do not want to have a 30 minute break every 500 miles to recharge, not only is that unsafe for other road users but it is a crime to drive when tired and can be used to arrest you if it results in an accident. The charging system will force people to rest for a while during long drives.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
They need a standard battery and plug. Lets skip the recharge and do an exchange instead. Here are my dead batteries and ten dollars. Thank you for putting in the charged batteries for me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Visionary
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Visionary
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Visionary
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Visionary
Many emerging technologies have often gone that route. Consider personal computers and VCRs, to name just two examples. The early leaders in these markets were small innovators who were quickly pushed aside by new competitors using a different (incompatible) format -- backed by established companies who had deeper pockets and more marketing clout.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Visionary
And the Tesla is just different than all of those plugs - but what makes the Tesla special is that its plug is cheaper and has the sensors to open the charging cap; where the other cars are expensive plastic with no sensors to open the charging cap.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Visionary
However, power/utility companies might want to get into the game. Duke, ConEd, FirstEnergy, whoever has a stake in selling electricity just might build some.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Visionary
Let's not forget that there was once a time when one company -- Standard Oil - owned (not franchised, but owned) virtually all retail sales outlets in the US (as well as all upstream production).
Although Standard Oil was forcibly broken up by federal anti-trust laws (and a non-sympathetic Supreme Court) I can't imagine anything similar ever happening today, an era when corporations literally own the government.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Visionary
If you hold and enforce your patents longer than that, it's a clear sign that your product failed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
proprietary madness
I know Tesla is a fairly new company, but it remains to be seen if they plan to follow the "cell phone model" and come out with constantly-changing battery designs and charger specs that are never backward-compatible with any previous model or with any other company. For Tesla to open up the company's patents (whether they're innovative or protective patents) is certainly a step in the right direction.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: proprietary madness
That would be an amazingly stupid thing to do. You can get away with that on a cellphone, where everyone owns their own charger, but cars use common infrastructure.
Think about it this way: If Ford or GM built a car whose gas tank inlet didn't fit a standard gas pump, would anyone buy it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: proprietary madness
Can I use it to transport my fusion reactor to my bridge?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: proprietary madness
To bring up cell-phones again, I'd say that (at least in a city) there are about as many gas stations as cell-phone towers. If you have, let's say, a Sprint telephone, it needs to connect to a Sprint tower. There might be a AT&T or Verizon tower that's closer and has better reception, but your Sprint telephone will ignore it.
The same condition could conceivably exist with proprietary gas stations, and, as with cell-phones, you'd only get into trouble out in the most remote areas, where only one company might operates.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: proprietary madness
Gasoline is a by-product of the kerosene manufacturing process.
Part of the reason automobiles were successful is that they ran on what was effectively waste at the time. An automobile that did not take advantage of the extraordinarily inexpensive and common fuel source would have been unlikely to overtake the use of horses.
A cheap, universal pump to get the gasoline out of barrels and into the tank of an automobile was very quickly invented. From that point forward, it seems pretty likely that anyone purchasing an automobile would have the same reaction to a proprietary filler nozzle we would have today: "Why would you do that? I'll just buy a car from someone else."
Add to that the fact that in the early days of automobiles, running a multi-state business in the US that was not hooked to train tracks was a huge mess because transporting things was crazy complicated before there were - you know - fuel trucks to move the crap around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There are patents and then there are patents ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patent access.
First, I refer to the additive printer patents, whose holders held up, litigated, lawyers lettered and otherwise enganged in barratry for the last 15 years. They tried to keep all of additive printing to themselves - then the patents expired and look at all the additive printers.
The same with the Wright Brothers who blocked aviation innovation for many years on the same basis. Then the TV patents, the Radio Patents and then the cell patents, all need to be relegated to their own individual dark ages....
Why no internet patents blocked us all? Tim Berners Lee was another visionary, apart in time, but brethren of ideas.
Musk needs to lockup Quebec Lithium supplies because the Quebec Government can give him cheap electricty to build an integrated mega battery factory next to a large lithium deposit = Earth to batteries = to cars even
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rumor is true - new announcement from Tesla
[ link to this | view in chronology ]