Agreed. I was hoping for a link to a BSD- or Creative Commons-style license, but this was only a reason for not [suing anyone] using the patents (as welcome as that is).
Until clarified, it kind of reads like "independently came up with the same idea, but did not research patents or reach out to us for licensing first."
I feel like (again, until clarified) it's more broad than that. "Wants to use our technology" certainly implies to me that I can seek out Tesla's patent applications and attempt to build using them.
That definitely doesn't sound right to me, because it says "wants to use our technology." That implies awareness that one is using Tesla's technology, because otherwise this promise wouldn't mean anything since people who don't believe they're using Tesla's technology wouldn't think they fall under it anyway.
I am having trouble working out what it does mean, though. Based on the rest of the article, my best guess is "Does not act in a predatory manner toward other carmakers, such as initiating patent lawsuits of their own." Basically, I think Musk is trying to say that Tesla are willing to cooperate toward the goal of making electric cars a bigger presence if you are, but they don't want people using their patents in conjunction with underhanded tactics to try and monopolize the market.
For example, using the Supercharger network requires that the automotive company offer energy for free for life to customers, and charge up front at the point of sale for all energy requirements for the life of the vehicle.
That's Musk's business model and is enforcing it for anyone who wants to use his "open infrastructure".
Which is bollocks to me: only wealthy people buying extremely expensive vehicles are going to want to prepay for a decade or two's worth of electricity. It means BMW and Audi will Supercharge, but Toyota and Ford? You can't ask budget customers to prepay a decade's worth of travel costs. You can't competitively and aggressively price a vehicle like that.
I imagine "good faith" means "follow OUR rules for the industry", which makes me sad. I'd like to see things be a bit more open than that, and I have very little doubt that this "standard" will be duplicated by companies unwilling to play by wealthy rules.
Well it will be simple - you can either buy a vehicle with a "supercharger" pack which is $X more,or you you can buy one without but then you can't use the superchargers. Then we will see what the market chooses - it might not be as clear as you think.
> but Toyota and Ford? You can't ask budget customers to prepay a decade's worth of travel costs.
A 2014 Ford Focus gets ~40mpg. Assuming 12,000 miles/year, that's ~300 gallons of fuel. Assume, conservatively, $3/gallon. That's ~$900/year for fuel, or $2700 over 3 years. The cost to get supercharger access from Tesla is $2000 at time of purchase ($2500 after delivery).
To finance $2000 at even a ridiculously high 10% over 3 years is $64.53/month, fully loaded principal and interest. This is already less than most people pay per month for gasoline/petrol.
And that's THREE YEARS. After that, to fuel at Superchargers is essentially free (already amortized).
"Budget car customers" include a lot of relatively poor people who cannot afford to make that fixed-amount decently-large payment every single month. And certainly not upfront at time of sale. Have you never seen someone who can "only put twenty buck of gas" ?
"In good faith" means that when you write to Tesla asking to license their patented technology at no cost as promised by their CEO, their lawyers write back saying "OK, if as a sign of good faith you also agree to license your patents to Tesla at no cost".
> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get tough.
It's nice to hear this, sure, but I fail to see the meat in this announcement.
They have to keep the patents (or donate them to a trusted third part, as a bunch of tech companies have done). They unfortunately need the protection. Otherwise, someone could sue them.
I think Musk's word in this case is good. He's not a nobody; his reputation is stellar.
A general business tip: rely on someone's reputation as a signal that you should consider doing business with them, and then rely on their signature on a contract to protect you when you do business with them.
Since this statement comes from a Chairman and a CEO, wouldn't a breach of this promise be considered as a form of bait and switch? I mean, he publicly advertises a certain promise in a function of a key operative from the company.
You don't think a Judge would have serious issues with the founder and CEO suing someone after saying "hey feel free to use our patents to create legitimate products?"
I agree, but not necessarily because Musk might randomly change his mind. The problem is if Tesla runs out of money they must sell these patents to another company whose CEO might not have the same outlook.
Longer term, the other problem is when Musk retires/dies. Of course, that probably wont affect any current patents, but it could to future ones.
If Musk is smart (and serious about his belief in OSS), he'll keep the patents as a defensive tool and provide $0 perpetual licenses to the patents to anyone who asks.
> I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get tough.
The question is whether its a specific enough statement as to reasonably induce reliance, and whether promissory estoppel would apply. It seems to me (and I'm not an expert) like it may be close enough as to seriously threaten Tesla's ability to successfully prosecute suits, and vague enough that anyone else would still be leery about using anything Tesla has patented.
Are YOU going to built a business around Tesla's patents? If so, you just got a very credible hint that Tesla might be interested in talking to you. Isn't that great?
Sometimes I feel doing business in the US is liking playing with your toys while your mom (courts) are watching. No wonder the legal industry is so huge. It has ingrained in people's mind that other people's word are worth nothing. I wish we could look past that... go talk to the guy (or his whatever-department that handles licensing matters). If you're really interested in starting this business, it won't take much of your time.
>It has ingrained in people's mind that other people's word are worth nothing.
Except that the legal enforcement of property rights is something that separates the First World with the rest of the planet, and is an engine for economic growth.
Except that such big dependency on legal enforcement and settling everything in court is clearly an American think - we don't see anything near it in Europe.
I interpret this as a signal that Tesla will be willing to enter into no-cost license agreements for companies wishing to use their technology, and won't pursue cases against companies who make technology that is related, and where infringement might be plausible, and could go either way when put to trial.
Yes, they could hand over the patents to RPX, and pay the annual fee; instead of 'as protection' it would be 'as a donation to the public'. Perhaps an odd use of RPX, but it would be really effective.
IIRC, Twitter's approach was to also give the inventor a transferable license to the patent. That way if Twitter used it offensively, the inventor could independently license the patent to the company who was being sued.
That's very reminiscent of the Spooner vs. Tucker argument about dual ownership of a patent; Spooner conceding to Tucker that co-inventors should each be able to freely license, then Tucker asking if one inventor were to give away the license to the world for free would he be infringing on the other inventor's rights.
In the biotech space there exists a system called "patentleft" which theoretically provides royalty-free licensing of patents with the stipulation that any derivative works / improvements also be licensed under the same terms.
Seems like there is good potential to build on the momentum of Tesla's announcement to formalize the process, and answer the questions that I'm sure will emerge in this thread - eg more akin to an Creative Commons (which is very well defined and practical).
These are big words, even coming from the extreme underdog in the auto industry.
What exactly is Elon committing to here? Is Tesla planning on releasing any design documentation, or technical specifications or manufacturing process information?
It's great that they won't enforce patents in an effort to not stifle innovation, but do they plan on taking any actions that will encourage innovation?
Since many auto manufacturing companies doing R&D and Tesla, having already created technologies good enough to bring to market, there will definitely be incentive for taking action. Tesla has already created technologies to run cars that rival (performance) gasoline cars, and access to those technologies/designs will accelerate their own EV efforts.
He makes an interesting implicit argument - that it's okay to use patents to block established players from innovating with you, but not to block new startups from challenging you.
He's not saying that. He's arguing that, were Tesla not to take the patents, there was a good chance one of the established auto makers would have taken them. This would have been the problem, as the entrenched players probably would have used the patents to stifle innovation in order to maintain dominance.
What can an innovator do besides filing a defensive patent?
I've heard of various strategies like publishing the work in as many forums as possible; publishing it on IP.com; filing a patent application and withdrawing it; filing it and pledging; etc.
It would be nice if there were a step by step guide written by an attorney--ideally an ex-patent attorney--that goes lists the steps in order of priority/cost/ease for both individual innovators and companies with deeper pockets.
Interestingly, try navigating through – here's the link to page 14: https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee%3A%2.... I remember reading or being told that Google only estimates how many results there are, and refines the estimate as you navigate further down the list. As of page 14 there seem to be only 133 results; a far cry from 6,430.
Apparently they don't estimate, they inflate how many results there are... For example, I never seen a case when their "estimate" was lower then the actual number of results.
An upper bound is a valid estimation. "Inflating" assumes that they have a good approximation, and that they arbitrarily increase it. I don't think that they do that.
Most people don't expect upper bounds, though, when talking about estimations. I for one would appreciate a less-than or less-than-or-equal sign when this is truly an upper bound, as it gives me a better idea of what to expect of the actual number of results in relation to the estimation.
> Most people don't expect upper bounds, though, when talking about estimations.
What do you mean? If all I know about a number X is that it is an estimate for Y, I would expect X to be an upper bound for Y 50% of the time and a lower bound 50% of the time.
The choice to take an upper bound (which will systematically err on the high side) and call it an "estimate" (which is not expected to have large, systematic error) inflates the numbers.
Not many people have been in the same boat as Tesla, a young company in a trillion dollar industry with limited players.
What Tesla is saying, here are my patents, let's start building electrical fuel stations arround the world, i can do a lot of them by myselve (and i'm doing that), but i don't have enough budget to do it arround the world.
It seems clear to me, that Tesla's biggest obstacle for electrical cars is electrical fuel stations and not other car dealers, because Tesla dominates the electrical car "scene" right now (personal opinion)... But i don't consider one , because there aren't any electrical fuel station arround here (Belgium) - although they are working on that as fast as they can, checkout http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger and scroll between "open right now" and "winter 2014-2015".
I think it's a good business move from Tesla.. I'm just curious what happens when a car manufacturer takes the patents, adds one of their own patents and then unites with a other car manufacturers.... Leaving Tesla in the dark, is that possible or are there some limits to "opening" their patents?
Yeah, but we all know selling cars are mostly marketing :D. Tesla will have a field day if the other manufacturers do that. It's a risk, but it's a calculated risk with a huge amount of rewards for reasonable risk, which is exactly how smaller companies compete with the incumbents. No CEO from a big auto company could make this move, but Musk could, and did.
Let's say a manufacturer goes all in on the deal with Tesla and he brings out a superior car to Tesla (let's say Audi for example)...
Then people who want to choose an electric car, will think about Audi and Tesla.
It's not Tesla that is trying to get in the game, he's already in it... But are they willing to roll your dice against Tesla by competing him on popularity of products and joining him on aggressively providing fuel stations (hell, you can name it Audi Fuel Zone, if you want).
You could break out a huge market in no time, it wouldn't be bad to team up with Tesla to break open the market.. Although i wouldn't like to be Mercedes (for example), produce a electric car and say to my clients: hey, you can tank at a Audi Fuel Zone or we don't have an electric fuel stations compatible with our technology :)
You're aware that it's possible to make money on an invention without patenting it. First to market advantage, a foothold in the market, continuing brand recognition as the go-to source for that product, a head start on the next round of innovation, increased sales across the industry as the product becomes more valuable to customers, increased sales of complementary products and services, etc.
That was a calculation, assuming that they would loose more in the suit than in opening up it's patents, this isn't the same at all, though it is a direct response to the question.
Core element there being "to settle an anti-trust suit".
It's helpful to keep in mind that AT&T operated under anti-trust watch from 1917 through 1984, with the 1950s action being among the most significant.
It was also responsible for keeping AT&T out of the computing market, which meant that when AT&T created an operating system, it had something it couldn't sell, so it gave it away.
Sounds to me like the "in good faith" clause is to retain the patents for a defense should someone try to come after Telsa for infringing.
Quite an interesting business move and pretty unprecedented as far as I know, at least for a non-software company. Presumably he is hoping that this will encourage improvement to infrastructure. He is also probably thinking he can build higher quality cars and cheaper than others, irrespective of if they are electric or not (probably this is true).
That is certainly the most plausible reading of that phrase, but it still seems like it could be put into a licence pretty easily, along the lines of "User of these patents hereby relinquishes all claims of infringement against Tesla Motors for any patents the user may own or license".
I read it more along the lines of "you may use these as you wish but don't try to turn around and screw the electrification of transportation, harming humanity's future for your own short-term gain". Musk isn't doing it for money after all.
You're right that the problem is they can't scale charging stations up fast enough. But my point was that Musk is running Tesla not to earn money, but to fix a particular global problem. His terminal goal is electrification of transport, as opposed to typical terminal goals of many CEOs, i.e. "to have a lot of money". Money is only instrumental for Tesla.
Tesla is a public company, Musk is reported to have a 32% stake [1], so is responsible to the other shareholders. If the decision didn't make business sense, he would expect to be replaced as Chairman and CEO.
There may be altruism and mission involved, but Tesla isn't (and shouldn't be) a charity.
> There may be altruism and mission involved, but Tesla isn't (and shouldn't be) a charity.
Altruism and being a company are not mutually exclusive. In case of Tesla, being a company is probably the most effective way to achieve its goal. It's the difference between instrumental and terminal values I'm trying to point out; i.e. Tesla is earning money to electrify transport, not building cars to earn money.
FFS, change the title back to what it was submitted with! "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" makes no sense out of context. At least the original title said something about Tesla Motors.
Thanks for pointing that out (I didn't know that). That said I think it's a bit immature and out of place in a public blog post (which will no doubt be repeated elsewhere) for such a visible company that wishes to be taken seriously.
Not everyone subscribes to the theory that companies must have a grim and humorless face. I don't see why a lighthearted title is a bad thing. It's not like it's lowbrow or mean-spirited humor.
Bad use of english is purposeful - it's a meme, one of the oldest and most widely recognized on the Internet. He's just showing some humour (not the first time).
So you are saying that the audience for the blog post consists of an overwhelming number of people that understand that meme? As opposed to people who do not? I disagree.
This has been discussed a lot over the past few years. The title-changing policy is very widely disliked and leads to a lot of clearly poor results like this, but the mods are completely uninterested in changing it, so there it is. I don't know why we're even allowed to write titles anymore — it may just as well be populated by an automatic HTTP request.
True, but if you were Gigantic Auto Manufacturer, would you build these patents into a billion-dollar factory without a stronger guarantee that Tesla won't about-face in 5-10 years? I wouldn't risk it.
It's an interesting move...you help produce (potentially) lots of little companies to attack the market share of the entrenched players, but those same players cannot/will not be able to use the same advantages. Good show.
No. But you'd never have any sort of dependency in a business of that size that wasn't properly licensed/firm. This might help your development teams though prototype stuff more easily without fear knowing that if it got the greenlight then the lawyers/bd people would call Tesla and start negotiating.
If they can get uptake of some of their key patents then this equates to "standards". It possibly could help spread the recharging kiosks if there are more cars on the road that use the same tech. I love the fact that Musk thinks he can just outcompete other companies. Very very cool.
> They would be on the receiving end of a PR shitstorm if they tried to enforce their patents after publishing this.
I can see a situation where a competitor / patent troll sues them, and they use the patents defensively. If they're obviously on the right side, their PR department won't have such a hard time.
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.
"Good faith" is somewhat subjective, and usually it depends on context. Generally speaking, it means acting in an as-stated, forthright, non-deceptive manner.
For example, if I agree to explore a partnership with you "in good faith," it means I am serious about the possibility of a partnership. I am not merely wasting your time for the purposes of distracting you, defrauding you, conducting market espionage, or sending false signals. Basically, I am acting "in good faith" when I honestly believe I am doing what I claim to be doing, for the reasons I claim to be doing it. You assume I am acting in good faith, and vice versa, unless a pattern of actions or evidence gives sufficient cause to doubt it.
IANAL, but I've dealt with "good faith" issues in business development and licensing contracts more times than I wish I'd had to. There is usually an implicit assumption that all contracts are entered into in good faith unless proven otherwise -- which means I'd almost definitely want to enter into an agreement with Tesla if I were to use their technology.
Bad faith would be GM patenting an obvious extension to a Tesla patent. What I think Musk is trying to do is poison the electric car patent pool with Milk and Honey. It isn't just Tesla patents that matter, but the whole landscape. Patents stifle the spread and pace of good idea distribution.
That's my understanding of the term too, but it doesn't seem that subjective. IANAL, but in the absence of an explicit overriding definition, I suspect the court would interpret just like you said it; i.e. it's not up to Tesla.
> There is usually an implicit assumption that all contracts are entered into in good faith unless proven otherwise -- which means I'd almost definitely want to enter into an agreement with Tesla if I were to use their technology.
Doesn't that say the opposite? Assuming the sentence legally binds Tesla in the first place, wouldn't they have to prove you're acting in bad faith in order to sue you? I mean, maybe you want an agreement anyway, but to the extent that the term defaults to true, it means you need less contractual protection.
Nothing is legally binding without a meeting of the minds: offer, acceptance, and consideration. Tesla is offering not to sue you, yes. What are you giving Tesla in return? Who signed a contract memorializing this agreement? What money is changing hands?
This promise is just as legally binding as the promises of political candidates when they are campaigning (i.e. not at all), and is worth exactly how much you paid for it (i.e. nothing).
That said, of all the companies out there who can make a promise, Tesla is near the top of my list of the most trustworthy.
Would I believe this promise if Apple, Google or Microsoft made it? Hell no. But for some ineffable reason, I believe Elon Musk when he promises something, and I believe Tesla wouldn't promise something without Musk's approval.
I still would get a license agreement to back up this promise if I were going to use any of their technology, though. You'd be stupid not to. Tesla shareholders could ultimately kick Elon Musk to the curb just as Apple did to Jobs. Musk could pull a reverse-Gates and become an asshole in his old age instead of a philanthropist. Nothing is certain in the world of business.
It's not, but it wasn't the point of the blog post to be a legally binding document, the point was to put the industry on notice that Tesla's patents are open and that they want to collaborate.
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.
They have definitely left a lot of wiggle room and you'd be crazy to build stuff based on their patents without a licensing agreement, but I think this signals that they are very open to licensing their technology, and are not trying to "build a moat". This would be a lot more interesting if they were willing to state the terms on which they are willing to license the patents, but there are probably complex legal issues with saying so explicitly.
Easier would be if they created an online form or possibly a meatspace dropbox (to realistically prevent DDOSes) which auto-issues you a license to use their patents at zero monetary cost or cost of postage.
I can't see the need for automation here. It's not like millions will wake up tomorrow to build electric cars in their garages and start a company to sell those.
Intellectual Ventures is known to weaponize their patents by “selling” them to a company that does nothing but sue other people and can’t be sued for infringement. Is there any license that Tesla can write to open their patents but protect themselves in the case that another car maker uses Tesla’s patents but sells their own patents to a company that sues Tesla?
IV could be what Tesla and SpaceX is, but Myhrvold is an empire building twit. The people he hires leave to do better things because the things they do are not good. So much wasted human capital.
I wasn’t comparing Tesla to IV, I was comparing another auto manufacturer to IV. The point is, no one wants to be the chump offering their own patents on FRAND terms while the competition is not playing fair. And the ways that a competitor might play unfairly are probably impossible to enumerate in a single blanket license, thus necessitating the vague language of the blog post.
I understand. Most other auto manufacturers will start acting pretty oddly as their businesses collapse. I would almost expect them to form a patent pool to keep another electric car company, think Saturn, sprouting up and furthering their demise.
Does the US Govt still hold car company debt? Things could get really weird...
This seems to be the right amount of wriggle room.
A high profile company like Tesla is not going to want to be seen suing two high schools students using an electric motor to power their Tanzanian school. But they want to reserve the right to stop the White Supremecist Indy 500 team using the same engine.
Seems like the best of a bunch of good and bad choices
Anything short of a legal document setting out which rights are waived and which are reserved, and under what circumstances, is just PR. No company is going to use a Tesla-patented technology without that guarantee.
Well, step 1 is PR telling the world they can do what they thought they couldn't - use Tesla's patents for free. I'm sure lawyers are busily writing suitable legal agreements as we type, just to clarify obvious concerns. Without that PR, few would be asking permission.
No company is going to use a Tesla-patented technology without that guarantee.
Lots of people are saying this, but I don't understand it. My understanding (IANAL) is that when the CEO publishes something like this on the company's official web site, it becomes completely impossible for the company to win any future patent suits due to promissory estoppel.
Musk has effectively stuffed all of the company's patents into his office shredder. Good for him.
(Edit: He has also intentionally lowered the market value of the company by a certain amount, which is interesting.)
I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to talk to the legal department of, say, GM and clarify the exact terms for a license. The blog post is a general statement of intent and the lawyers can discuss specific details as they apply to particular situations.
Promissory estoppel can apply without a covenant, but the good faith thing is pretty vague in the absence of a contract. Most likely they are going to put out licensing terms that protect Tesla against certain patent suits-- perhaps protecting them from new patents building-on-top-of/citing Tesla's own patents.
Just conjecture here, but my guess is that "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology" means that Tesla is going to require these others who want to use the technology to obtain a license from Tesla. That license may not include a royalty payment, but you can probably bet it will require a reciprocal license (back to Tesla) of any patents of the licensee. This will ensure that Tesla cannot be sued by any of its licensees on any of their patents, and that if they try to sue Tesla, they are no longer acting in "good faith" and have breached the agreement.
The interesting subtext here is that for Tesla to fulfil its potential more support for electric cars in wider society is needed, and while everyone else struggles to build electric cars the infrastructure won't catch up.
Opening up, in this sense, could be seen to be a selfish endeavour, but still a positive one, aiming to position Tesla as the Apple of the electric car market, only mildly less litigious.
This is a pretty good gesture. It will be good to spurt innovation since smaller players in the area don't need to worry about infringing.
What about the defensive measure? To defend against being sued. It would be good if Tesla pools the patents with others to form an "open patent" club where all the interested parties can join and use the patent to defend against infringement lawsuits.
Inspite of all the negative reactions here, I applaud this move.
The preceding statement to the one with 'good faith' is pretty important
>"If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal"
Does anyone know if Musk requires non competes of Tesla's employees?
Separately using the "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" meme (as has been pointed out below by peterarmstrong ) appears to be a clear "in your face" to "the man".
Most people I would imagine aren't aware of this meme (I wasn't) and using it in a public press release seems a bit odd to me.
I see this as essentially an open note to hardware tech companies asking them to come by and talk about licensing and interop deals without worrying that Tesla will be a hardcase about any possible IP infringement.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadWhat exactly does that little "in good faith" clause mean in there?
[edited for clarification]
I am having trouble working out what it does mean, though. Based on the rest of the article, my best guess is "Does not act in a predatory manner toward other carmakers, such as initiating patent lawsuits of their own." Basically, I think Musk is trying to say that Tesla are willing to cooperate toward the goal of making electric cars a bigger presence if you are, but they don't want people using their patents in conjunction with underhanded tactics to try and monopolize the market.
For example, using the Supercharger network requires that the automotive company offer energy for free for life to customers, and charge up front at the point of sale for all energy requirements for the life of the vehicle.
That's Musk's business model and is enforcing it for anyone who wants to use his "open infrastructure".
Which is bollocks to me: only wealthy people buying extremely expensive vehicles are going to want to prepay for a decade or two's worth of electricity. It means BMW and Audi will Supercharge, but Toyota and Ford? You can't ask budget customers to prepay a decade's worth of travel costs. You can't competitively and aggressively price a vehicle like that.
I imagine "good faith" means "follow OUR rules for the industry", which makes me sad. I'd like to see things be a bit more open than that, and I have very little doubt that this "standard" will be duplicated by companies unwilling to play by wealthy rules.
There's nothing "free" about Musk being the decider on whether or not you get sued.
A 2014 Ford Focus gets ~40mpg. Assuming 12,000 miles/year, that's ~300 gallons of fuel. Assume, conservatively, $3/gallon. That's ~$900/year for fuel, or $2700 over 3 years. The cost to get supercharger access from Tesla is $2000 at time of purchase ($2500 after delivery).
To finance $2000 at even a ridiculously high 10% over 3 years is $64.53/month, fully loaded principal and interest. This is already less than most people pay per month for gasoline/petrol.
And that's THREE YEARS. After that, to fuel at Superchargers is essentially free (already amortized).
I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get tough.
It's nice to hear this, sure, but I fail to see the meat in this announcement.
I think Musk's word in this case is good. He's not a nobody; his reputation is stellar.
Longer term, the other problem is when Musk retires/dies. Of course, that probably wont affect any current patents, but it could to future ones.
Beyond that, anyone who wants something signed and in writing could likely drop a note to Tesla for it when doing their due diligence.
That would clearly apply in this case.
The question is whether its a specific enough statement as to reasonably induce reliance, and whether promissory estoppel would apply. It seems to me (and I'm not an expert) like it may be close enough as to seriously threaten Tesla's ability to successfully prosecute suits, and vague enough that anyone else would still be leery about using anything Tesla has patented.
Sometimes I feel doing business in the US is liking playing with your toys while your mom (courts) are watching. No wonder the legal industry is so huge. It has ingrained in people's mind that other people's word are worth nothing. I wish we could look past that... go talk to the guy (or his whatever-department that handles licensing matters). If you're really interested in starting this business, it won't take much of your time.
Except that the legal enforcement of property rights is something that separates the First World with the rest of the planet, and is an engine for economic growth.
Is there anything they can do that's binding outside of a declarative 'we won't sue you unless...' statement?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation
Seems like there is good potential to build on the momentum of Tesla's announcement to formalize the process, and answer the questions that I'm sure will emerge in this thread - eg more akin to an Creative Commons (which is very well defined and practical).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patentleft
What exactly is Elon committing to here? Is Tesla planning on releasing any design documentation, or technical specifications or manufacturing process information?
It's great that they won't enforce patents in an effort to not stifle innovation, but do they plan on taking any actions that will encourage innovation?
I've heard of various strategies like publishing the work in as many forums as possible; publishing it on IP.com; filing a patent application and withdrawing it; filing it and pledging; etc.
It would be nice if there were a step by step guide written by an attorney--ideally an ex-patent attorney--that goes lists the steps in order of priority/cost/ease for both individual innovators and companies with deeper pockets.
This is another option (although kind of outside the box in terms of what RPX normally used for), although it's likely to be pricey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation
https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee:%22T...
Edit: Nice catch, peter_l_downs ... I didn't realize that the estimated search result of 6,430 would be off by such a large factor.
Most people don't expect upper bounds, though, when talking about estimations. I for one would appreciate a less-than or less-than-or-equal sign when this is truly an upper bound, as it gives me a better idea of what to expect of the actual number of results in relation to the estimation.
What do you mean? If all I know about a number X is that it is an estimate for Y, I would expect X to be an upper bound for Y 50% of the time and a lower bound 50% of the time.
How many times in the past has a private company opened up its core patents for everyone to use? There aren't that many precedences.
What Tesla is saying, here are my patents, let's start building electrical fuel stations arround the world, i can do a lot of them by myselve (and i'm doing that), but i don't have enough budget to do it arround the world.
It seems clear to me, that Tesla's biggest obstacle for electrical cars is electrical fuel stations and not other car dealers, because Tesla dominates the electrical car "scene" right now (personal opinion)... But i don't consider one , because there aren't any electrical fuel station arround here (Belgium) - although they are working on that as fast as they can, checkout http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger and scroll between "open right now" and "winter 2014-2015".
I think it's a good business move from Tesla.. I'm just curious what happens when a car manufacturer takes the patents, adds one of their own patents and then unites with a other car manufacturers.... Leaving Tesla in the dark, is that possible or are there some limits to "opening" their patents?
That's huge. And smart.
Then people who want to choose an electric car, will think about Audi and Tesla.
It's not Tesla that is trying to get in the game, he's already in it... But are they willing to roll your dice against Tesla by competing him on popularity of products and joining him on aggressively providing fuel stations (hell, you can name it Audi Fuel Zone, if you want).
You could break out a huge market in no time, it wouldn't be bad to team up with Tesla to break open the market.. Although i wouldn't like to be Mercedes (for example), produce a electric car and say to my clients: hey, you can tank at a Audi Fuel Zone or we don't have an electric fuel stations compatible with our technology :)
None the less, electric cars are coming.
Got me on that one :)
http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf
It's helpful to keep in mind that AT&T operated under anti-trust watch from 1917 through 1984, with the 1950s action being among the most significant.
It was also responsible for keeping AT&T out of the computing market, which meant that when AT&T created an operating system, it had something it couldn't sell, so it gave it away.
You may have heard of this, it was called "UNIX".
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/14405402742/
Quite an interesting business move and pretty unprecedented as far as I know, at least for a non-software company. Presumably he is hoping that this will encourage improvement to infrastructure. He is also probably thinking he can build higher quality cars and cheaper than others, irrespective of if they are electric or not (probably this is true).
i could be totally off the mark though
No, it's for money.
It's the charging stations. There aren't enough of them, and it's the biggest problem they have.
Tesla needs the big manufacturers to build electric cars so they will put charging stations everywhere.
There may be altruism and mission involved, but Tesla isn't (and shouldn't be) a charity.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Tesla_Motors
Altruism and being a company are not mutually exclusive. In case of Tesla, being a company is probably the most effective way to achieve its goal. It's the difference between instrumental and terminal values I'm trying to point out; i.e. Tesla is earning money to electrify transport, not building cars to earn money.
http://xkcd.com/286/ seems relevant here ;).
Today you are one of the 10,000 - http://xkcd.com/1053/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/14405402742/
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.
This is merely stating that Tesla is open to such things, not a legal guarantee.
I can see a situation where a competitor / patent troll sues them, and they use the patents defensively. If they're obviously on the right side, their PR department won't have such a hard time.
For example, if I agree to explore a partnership with you "in good faith," it means I am serious about the possibility of a partnership. I am not merely wasting your time for the purposes of distracting you, defrauding you, conducting market espionage, or sending false signals. Basically, I am acting "in good faith" when I honestly believe I am doing what I claim to be doing, for the reasons I claim to be doing it. You assume I am acting in good faith, and vice versa, unless a pattern of actions or evidence gives sufficient cause to doubt it.
IANAL, but I've dealt with "good faith" issues in business development and licensing contracts more times than I wish I'd had to. There is usually an implicit assumption that all contracts are entered into in good faith unless proven otherwise -- which means I'd almost definitely want to enter into an agreement with Tesla if I were to use their technology.
> There is usually an implicit assumption that all contracts are entered into in good faith unless proven otherwise -- which means I'd almost definitely want to enter into an agreement with Tesla if I were to use their technology.
Doesn't that say the opposite? Assuming the sentence legally binds Tesla in the first place, wouldn't they have to prove you're acting in bad faith in order to sue you? I mean, maybe you want an agreement anyway, but to the extent that the term defaults to true, it means you need less contractual protection.
This promise is just as legally binding as the promises of political candidates when they are campaigning (i.e. not at all), and is worth exactly how much you paid for it (i.e. nothing).
That said, of all the companies out there who can make a promise, Tesla is near the top of my list of the most trustworthy.
Would I believe this promise if Apple, Google or Microsoft made it? Hell no. But for some ineffable reason, I believe Elon Musk when he promises something, and I believe Tesla wouldn't promise something without Musk's approval.
I still would get a license agreement to back up this promise if I were going to use any of their technology, though. You'd be stupid not to. Tesla shareholders could ultimately kick Elon Musk to the curb just as Apple did to Jobs. Musk could pull a reverse-Gates and become an asshole in his old age instead of a philanthropist. Nothing is certain in the world of business.
Trust, but verify.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Promissory+Est...
Not that it applies here just yet, due to the vagueness of the good faith part.
Imo there will be :
* Other car manufacturers (such as BMW, that already contacted Tesla on this matter : http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/12/5804890/bmw-confirms-that-...
* Oil stations (Esso, BP ,etc.). Electricity based car ARE the future. This is their chance to become a part of it.
Does the US Govt still hold car company debt? Things could get really weird...
A high profile company like Tesla is not going to want to be seen suing two high schools students using an electric motor to power their Tanzanian school. But they want to reserve the right to stop the White Supremecist Indy 500 team using the same engine.
Seems like the best of a bunch of good and bad choices
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ
Lots of people are saying this, but I don't understand it. My understanding (IANAL) is that when the CEO publishes something like this on the company's official web site, it becomes completely impossible for the company to win any future patent suits due to promissory estoppel.
Musk has effectively stuffed all of the company's patents into his office shredder. Good for him.
(Edit: He has also intentionally lowered the market value of the company by a certain amount, which is interesting.)
http://www.wired.com/2009/08/strapping-success-the-3-point-s...
Opening up, in this sense, could be seen to be a selfish endeavour, but still a positive one, aiming to position Tesla as the Apple of the electric car market, only mildly less litigious.
What about the defensive measure? To defend against being sued. It would be good if Tesla pools the patents with others to form an "open patent" club where all the interested parties can join and use the patent to defend against infringement lawsuits.
Sorry to be a pedant! Great points. :-)
Let's see what a mob of similar armed companies will do.
>"If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal"
Separately using the "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" meme (as has been pointed out below by peterarmstrong ) appears to be a clear "in your face" to "the man".
Most people I would imagine aren't aware of this meme (I wasn't) and using it in a public press release seems a bit odd to me.