Tesla patent move - Real world obligations?

[scaesare]

Sorry to have sparked this discussion.

Not your fault. Some folks seem to be running things waaay out of context.

 

[magnet]

Sorry to have sparked this discussion.

Don't be sorry this is a conversation that has to happen. I agree it was somewhat off topic. Now back to figuring out how to get a Model S pack to work outside of the car where it can do much good. If you listen to the naysayers they would tell you to recycle a perfectly good $40k+ pack. yeah right


Is that what Tesla wants too? I think they are just trying to limit their liability which is all fine and good but to not sell parts to customers with salvaged cars or even no car at all is ********. I love Tesla but I'm not afraid to call em out when they are so clearly in the wrong.

 

[apacheguy]

Not your fault. Some folks seem to be running things waaay out of context.

come, come. Nothing wrong with a spirited discussion now and then. I just find it funny how some people say 'Hey, we're going open source.'

Fine print: But we still hold the copyrights and are not releasing any source code and you still have to reverse engineer the product yourself and no, we won't help you along the way.

I'm not saying Tesla should give this stuff away for free. Make Audi and BMW pay into the supercharger network if they want in, but the term open source, IMO, is absolutely the wrong term to use to describe what TM did with the patents. Obviously not everyone agrees, but guess what? That's totally fine with me. But please don't tell me I'm blowing things "waaay" out of context.

 

[wk057]

Sure, I think the term open source was used incorrectly.

Tesla has obviously not open sourced the Model S, otherwise I would have all of the info I need for my project already

 

[rlang59]

What are you a lawyer? Trust it is in Tesla best interest to comply with the spirit of the law as intended. You too will be crying a different tune if Tesla were to go bankrupt (unlikely but not impossible) or when your warranty expires


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Since June 19, 2011, the automobile industry in Europe has been subject to EU Regulation 566/2011, according to which manufacturers are obligated to release elec- tronic data enabling the exact identification of replacement parts for vehicles. This will further strengthen the position of independent service providers in the after- market sector, a sector that includes automotive services, parts, and the maintenance business. In the future, independent operators will thus have the same access to electronic repair and diagnostic information enjoyed by authorized repair shops.
With this, the EU Commission is systematically following the path it has pursued since the turn of the century with a variety of regulatory amendments (e.g., 1400/2002; 715/2007; 692/2008; 595/2009; 461/2010; 64/2012). The goal is to create a competitive landscape in Europe in which independent repair shops and autho- rized repair shops compete to serve different customer needs and segments. The idea is to strengthen the customer’s position and to encourage intense competition on all levels of the repair and parts value chain.

Not a lawyer but people keep saying that Tesla will have to release manuals and diagnostic tools based on a law that doesn't seem to agree with that statement. I'm not defending Tesla just pointing out that the law may not help in this case. The part you quoted is the part I was talking about. Tesla doesn't have "authorized repair shops" they run their own so they may not be obligated to do anything per that law. Myself I'd like to see the manuals and tools but I'm not going to be holding my breath based on that EU law.

 

[NigelM]

What are you a lawyer? Trust it is in Tesla best interest to comply with the spirit of the law as intended. You too will be crying a different tune if Tesla were to go bankrupt (unlikely but not impossible) or when your warranty expires

----
Since June 19, 2011, the automobile industry in Europe has been subject to EU Regulation 566/2011, according to which manufacturers are obligated to release elec- tronic data enabling the exact identification of replacement parts for vehicles. This will further strengthen the position of independent service providers in the after- market sector, a sector that includes automotive services, parts, and the maintenance business. In the future, independent operators will thus have the same access to electronic repair and diagnostic information enjoyed by authorized repair shops.
With this, the EU Commission is systematically following the path it has pursued since the turn of the century with a variety of regulatory amendments (e.g., 1400/2002; 715/2007; 692/2008; 595/2009; 461/2010; 64/2012). The goal is to create a competitive landscape in Europe in which independent repair shops and autho- rized repair shops compete to serve different customer needs and segments. The idea is to strengthen the customer’s position and to encourage intense competition on all levels of the repair and parts value chain.

When you cut and paste from any source it's expected that you provide a source link. That one came from a Boston Consulting Group document.

BTW, the quote is not an extract from the actual regulation.

 

[NigelM]

There has been reference to the EU regulation 566/2011 several times on the forum so I looked up the actual regulation:

Commission Regulation (EU) 576/2011

Here"s the relevant section:

(12)
In order to ensure effective competition on the market for vehicle repair and maintenance information services, and in order to clarify that the information concerned also covers information which needs to be provided to independent operators other than repairers, so as to ensure that the independent vehicle repair and maintenance market as a whole can compete with authorised dealers, regardless of whether the vehicle manufacturer gives such information to authorised dealers and repairers directly, further clarifications with regard to the details of the information to be provided under Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 are necessary.

I added bold to highlight the intention of the law and, FTR, the intent is to ensure that independent repair shops can compete with authorized dealers. Tesla does not have authorized dealers so the regulation as it stands does not require them to do anything.

Clearly regulation 566/2011 (and other related regulations) did not foresee a situation where an auto manufacturer would not have authorized dealers; that, in turn, may lead to a new or amended regulation but for now it is what it is.

 

[scaesare]

and are not releasing any source code and you still have to reverse engineer the product yourself

1: They didn't say that.

B: Trying to extrapolate that as their stance for not wanting to enable a guy in his garage to potentially fry himself is foolish

III: You ignore that they mention doing so "in the spirit of open source", and " the open source philosophy"


But hey, why let the actual facts get in the way?

 

[Doug_G]

First of all, Tesla opening up their patents doesn't mean they are giving away their proprietary designs. Far from it. You can't go and ask them for their Supercharger drawings; they'll rightfully tell you to pound sand.

Tesla opening up patents doesn't mean they will give you anything other than what is in the patent document itself. They are under no obligation to do anything, except they have promised not to sue you if you infringe on the patent in order to build and market an EV.

Patents, however, are required to describe the invention thoroughly enough that someone "normally practiced in the art" can build one. That doesn't mean no work is required - they still have to design, build, and test their version. That could be a very large, expensive project, and the result might not be the slightest bit similar or compatible with the Tesla version. But they can use that patent IP as part of their machine.

The patents still protect Tesla, in that someone else can't patent the same technology and then try to sue Tesla over it. So they're not losing all the benefits of their patents.


Patents have nothing to do with spare parts or manuals or whatever. Totally separate issue. However that part of the discussion was probably in effect conflated by the thread split.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Good point. So 'open source' is the wrong term that people have been using to describe Tesla's patent maneuver. If you have to reverse engineer something then it is, by definition, not open source. All they did was say we won't sue you if you copy us.

Which makes it seem like a PR stunt more than anything else

Sorry, it seems you guys have gone off in a different direction. Tesla said they are "open sourcing" their patents, they did not say they are "open sourcing" everything in the company (including designs that are not patented and are trade secrets). Neither did they say they will hand-hold the people that intend to use them or provide tech support.

Patents are by design open source already. You can look them up in the patent database. What Tesla means by talking about the "open source philosophy" is the licensing model. They intend to follow a similar one to open source software.

And if you don't have the expertise to understand or utilize what's written in those patents, that's not really Tesla's responsibility. The analogy in open source software is that the source code is provided, but it doesn't necessarily come with good (or any) documentation for everything nor necessarily anyone who can answer questions about what is written.

As for all the talk about service manuals, that's an entirely different subject from patents.

 

[Jason S]

^^ What stopcrazypp said.

Also... what about "open source" means "support"? Just because you can look at the source doesn't mean you can get somebody to explain it to you.

 

[magnet]

Sorry, it seems you guys have gone off in a different direction. Tesla said they are "open sourcing" their patents, they did not say they are "open sourcing" everything in the company (including designs that are not patented and are trade secrets). Neither did they say they will hand-hold the people that intend to use them or provide tech support.

Patents are by design open source already. You can look them up in the patent database. What Tesla means by talking about the "open source philosophy" is the licensing model. They intend to follow a similar one to open source software.

And if you don't have the expertise to understand or utilize what's written in those patents, that's not really Tesla's responsibility. The analogy in open source software is that the source code is provided, but it doesn't necessarily come with good (or any) documentation for everything nor necessarily anyone who can answer questions about what is written.

As for all the talk about service manuals, that's an entirely different subject from patents.

We don't see it this way, embracing open source philosophy really means they should be embracing open source hardware. BMW and Tesla and the community at large can all SHARE and work on better motors, inverters, BMS's, chargers TOGETHER. We are not talking about open source software only. No one expects Tesla to give away their wind river linux source code.

The spare parts issue is related because if they wont even share with you when you slap thousands down on the parts counter you know they have been corrupted by paranoid lawyers and money men

Like you said patents are already open source so this whole thing sounds like a PR stunt to attract young idealist engineers who are going to be sadly disappointed. When is the last time you heard of a BMW suing Toyota or GM suing Ford anyways? I think Elon actually wants to get rid of the whole patent system, but he is only a trimtab trying to control what is becoming a larger and larger ship and the winds are blowing hard in all different directions. The money men and lawyers are scared of the open source movement. Elon sees the light.

 

[apacheguy]

1: They didn't say that.

B: Trying to extrapolate that as their stance for not wanting to enable a guy in his garage to potentially fry himself is foolish

III: You ignore that they mention doing so "in the spirit of open source", and " the open source philosophy"


But hey, why let the actual facts get in the way?

No, Tesla did not say that in their blog post. I'm not ignoring facts. Rather, it's how it been portrayed by the media and, ahem users on TMC. That's what I have a problem with.

Can we please just agree to disagree and drop it? Thank you. I would appreciate it if everyone else would do the same. Just leave it. You don't agree with me nor do I agree with you.

 

[rlang59]

There has been reference to the EU regulation 566/2011 several times on the forum so I looked up the actual regulation:

Commission Regulation (EU) 576/2011

Here"s the relevant section:



I added bold to highlight the intention of the law and, FTR, the intent is to ensure that independent repair shops can compete with authorized dealers. Tesla does not have authorized dealers so the regulation as it stands does not require them to do anything.

Clearly regulation 566/2011 (and other related regulations) did not foresee a situation where an auto manufacturer would not have authorized dealers; that, in turn, may lead to a new or amended regulation but for now it is what it is.

Thanks Nigel, that is what I was referencing.

 

[eepic]

No, Tesla did not say that in their blog post. I'm not ignoring facts. Rather, it's how it been portrayed by the media and, ahem users on TMC. That's what I have a problem with.

Can we please just agree to disagree and drop it? Thank you. I would appreciate it if everyone else would do the same. Just leave it. You don't agree with me nor do I agree with you.

How about the second sentence of the blog post?

"They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology."
All Our Patent Are Belong To You | Blog | Tesla Motors

If you're going start up a topic for discussion, then one would hope to continue a rigorous debate rather than "drop it" when people don't agree with your opinion.

With regards to your opinion that this was merely a PR stunt and has no practical effect on competition, I disagree. GM/BMW/Nissan are now free to explore similar design choices as Tesla's if they wish without hitting an IP wall. It also gives them freedom to borrow inspiration from TM's patents and not be forced to make sub-optimal design changes to avoid infringing on patents. The idea of a "recipe book" and so that Paris Hilton can build her own Model S from scratch was never the intention.

 

[scaesare]

No, Tesla did not say that in their blog post. I'm not ignoring facts. Rather, it's how it been portrayed by the media and, ahem users on TMC. That's what I have a problem with.

Untrue. Allow me to quote you, and please notice the first-person use of "we" in referring to the copyright holder:

Fine print: But we still hold the copyrights and are not releasing any source code and you still have to reverse engineer the product yourself and no, we won't help you along the way.

Can we please just agree to disagree

Sure.

and drop it? Thank you. I would appreciate it if everyone else would do the same. Just leave it. You don't agree with me nor do I agree with you.

Well, don't expect to demand to have the last say when you post incorrect statement and then contradict yourself.

 

[apacheguy]

Ay yay yay. This whole thread was a mistake. Get it? Humans make mistakes. I made one. Ok? Please stop incessantly bashing me and dissecting my posts. We're beating a dead horse here. Nothing useful is going to come of further debate. I'm sure the mods would agree.

 

[wk057]

Mmm... McDonalds... er, dead horses...

 

[scaesare]

No bashing going on. If you now feel your posts have been in error, then you've admitted that.

No harm, no foul.

 

[schonelucht]

I added bold to highlight the intention of the law and, FTR, the intent is to ensure that independent repair shops can compete with authorized dealers. Tesla does not have authorized dealers so the regulation as it stands does not require them to do anything.

Not really. What you bolded is just one of the intents of the regulation to reach a broader intent (fair competition). As such it is inclusive, not excluding other possible reasons to provide this information. In fact, one such reason is specified in the first sentence of that same paragraph and is independent of Tesla having a dealership organisation or not having one. Your bolded part just clarifies that independent operators need to receive all the information they need to get the job done and that "but we don't even provide it to our own dealers" is not a valid defence.

If you read the original regulation 715/2007 of which your quoted text is a clarification ( http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32007R0715 ) it is quite clear that it doesn't matter wether there is a competition with a dealership. Especially clause (8) leaves no doubt :

(8)

Unrestricted access to vehicle repair information, via a standardised format which can be used to retrieve the technical information, and effective competition on the market for vehicle repair and maintenance information services are necessary to improve the functioning of the internal market, particularly as regards the free movement of goods, freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services. A great proportion of such information is related to on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems and their interaction with other vehicle systems. It is appropriate to lay down technical specifications that manufacturers' websites should follow, along with targeted measures to ensure reasonable access for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Common standards agreed with the involvement of stakeholders, such as the OASIS (4) format, can facilitate the exchange of information between manufacturers and service providers. It is therefore appropriate to initially require the use of the technical specifications of the OASIS format and to ask the Commission to request CEN/ISO to further develop this format into a standard with a view to replacing the OASIS format in due course.