Posts Tagged: "toyota"

IBM, Toyota Join LOT Network, Underscoring Rapid Growth for the Patent Risk Management Consortium

Information technology giant IBM recently announced that it had agreed to join the LOT Network, a nonprofit patent risk management consortium designed to immunize its members from lawsuits filed by patent assertion entities (PAEs). The move brings an additional 80,000 patents and patent application under the aegis of the LOT Network, which currently offers its members immunity to 2.3 million global patent assets should those patents ever be sold to companies that make more than half of their gross revenue from patent assertions. Since the IBM announcement last week, LOT Network has added a few new members, including Japanese carmaker Toyota, which just announced today that it has agreed to join the consortium. Since we last covered LOT Network in August 2018, the organization has more than doubled in size from about 275 companies up to 623 companies. Since it was founded in 2014, LOT Network’s membership has increased by a compound annual growth rate of 115%.

Open Invention Network: A Mission to Maintain Open-Source Status for Linux Systems

As Jaime Siegel, OIN’s Global Director of Licensing, notes, OIN is able to grant free membership to companies joining the consortium thanks to the efforts of eight full-funding member companies which have each funded $20 million to support OIN’s operations through an endowment. These companies include the first six companies to form OIN: Sony, Phillips, IBM, Red Hat, NEC and SUSE; joining those companies are Google and Toyota. OIN’s board consists of representatives from each of these full funding members. Every new member of OIN signs the same licensing agreement as the full-funding members, giving all members in the organization equal standing in terms of the cross-license agreement.

ITC Institutes 337 Complaint Accusing Toyota Vehicles of Infringing Infotainment Chip Patents

On Thursday, June 7th, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it was instituting a Section 337 patent infringement investigation of automobile infotainment systems being imported into the U.S. based on infringement claims asserted by major semiconductor maker Broadcom. Broadcom is alleging that a group of Japanese automakers and tech companies, including Toyota, Panasonic and Denso Ten, over the sale of head units, rear seat entertainment units, units for displaying information or entertainment, as well as cameras and other processing components used in those units and the automobiles containing such units.

Microsoft, Toyota announce new licensing agreement for connected car IP

The licensing agreement, which covers patents directed at connected car technologies, is the latest partnership between these two companies seeking to increase entertainment and autonomous tech platforms within vehicles.,, In recent months, Microsoft has been ramping up licensing programs seeking to encourage the use of its patented technologies by auto manufacturers. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the Microsoft Connected Car Platform, a development platform for connected car technologies using the Azure cloud.

Privacy and Security in the Age of the Driverless Car

The privacy implications of the driverless car are significant. The data that such a vehicle could collect and the potential uses of that data could be extraordinarily intrusive. Driverless cars could provide both historic and real-time, continuous geolocation data. Companies could utilize this data to determine not only your current location and destination but also every place that you have been. This data could lead to commercially valuable, but extremely sensitive and intimate information about individuals being discovered. Advertisers may be able to discern the purchasing patterns of individuals by tracking what stores they frequent. Insurers may be able to determine what the lifestyle of individuals is like by following their daily activities (e.g., constant trips to the gym) and dining habits (e.g., persistent trips to fast food restaurants).