Automotively patent

A good fraction of the world’s patents are in the automotive industry – one of the most technology advanced and intense product sectors.

Therefore I have always been puzzled by the lack of patent enforcement in this industry, excepting the odd patent troll activity.

I have just had a chat to the senior legal counsel at Hyundai and it turns out that the major players in this industry have a gentleman’s agreement not to enforce their patents against each other.

They don’t cross license either; they just don’t enforce their patents.

So you might wonder why then they have patents at all? Well it’s a gentleman’s agreement so they need to patents just in case someone is silly enough to break it.

This then explains why Tesla can sell cars and infringe thousands of patents without fear. And why Elon Musk can make a bold statements about Tesla not enforcing any of it’s patents – no one would license them anyway. He is giving away nothing.