Posts Tagged: "automotive"

Avanci’s new 5G Vehicle Program – A One Stop Shop?

While the 5G program launch is a step into the right direction, the biggest challenge will be the new royalty rate. The 5G program is targeted at automotive OEMs, who if they join within the next 6 months (or before they ship their first 5G vehicle, whichever is later) will get access to all members’ cellular SEPs for a discounted rate of $29 per vehicle. After the 6 months the rate increases to $32 per vehicle for late joiners. While the whole automotive market will be happy about a SEP market share of 80%-83% (table 1), the new royalty rates will likely be discussed with a lot more controversy.

Patent Trends Study Part Five: Automotive Industry

It has been a wild decade for the automotive industry, with U.S. auto brands almost dying in the Great Recession. Federal government intervention rescued brands and attempted to turn them toward efficiency instead of profitable large SUVs. Although there has been a steep increase in patent filings in the automotive space, U.S. companies have a smaller proportion of them, indicating global forces are a major threat. This is especially acute in the area of electric propulsion, where our early patent lead has plateaued. Many of the car brands and battery innovators have been sold to Chinese interests who are moving quickly with government support to dominate the car industry, at least for electric vehicles (EVs). Our study not only identified a set of applications that pertained to this industry, but also—for each application in this set—we determined whether the application pertained to one or more of the categories shown in the topology below. If so, the application was appropriately tagged, such that it could be included in one or more category-specific data subsets for subsequent analysis.

Identifying Non-Traditional Competitors: Spotting Aliens in Traditional Technologies

We have seen it with respect to the largest tech companies entering the banking market, and now we are seeing it with tech companies entering the automotive industry. In this free webinar we will just the automotive industry as an example as to how one can identify non-traditional competitors entering traditional markets.

OEM Trademarks in the AfterMarket: Exploring the Boundaries

While there are certainly limits on how—and how much—aftermarket sellers can use OEM trademarks to communicate key information about aftermarket parts, the legal boundaries for aftermarket sellers are not always clear. And, in the automotive industry, the question of legal boundaries is perhaps most intriguing when the trademark concerned is one of product configuration. Indeed, several U.S. auto companies own incontestable trademarks registrations for various source-identifying parts of their automobiles such as grilles, headlights, and fenders. In light of such perpetual trademark rights in these part configurations, how can aftermarket sellers offer visually identical replacement grilles, headlights or fenders without significant risk of a trademark infringement claim from the auto companies?

3M files patent and trademark suit against Chinese manufacturer of spray gun paint preparation system

On September 21st, Saint Paul, MN-based technology and materials company 3M (NYSE:MMM) filed a lawsuit alleging patent and trademark infringement committed by Shanghai, China-based Thunder Finish. The lawsuit targets Thunder Finish’s marketing of paint preparation products developed by 3M which are meant to simplify the use and cleanup of liquid paint spray guns. The suit is filed in the Western District of Wisconsin.