Posts Tagged: "Tesla"

Complex IP Challenges in Autonomous Vehicles

On August 16, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it had opened a probe into Tesla’s driver-assistance technologies after it identified 11 crashes since 2018 in which a Tesla vehicle had struck an emergency-response vehicle. All Tesla vehicles involved had been using the automaker’s Autopilot feature at the time of the crashes, which enables the vehicles to steer, accelerate, and brake automatically. The crashes have attracted the scrutiny of lawmakers and regulators of Autopilot and similar technologies. With increased attention being paid to AV safety, AV companies are shifting their research and development and IP strategies toward technologies designed to address consumers’ real-world safety concerns.

Take Steps to Deter the Spy in Your Business

Tesla recently filed two lawsuits for theft of trade secrets. In March, the auto maker sued several former employees and the two companies they joined, Zoox and Chinese EV automaker Xiaopeng. The trade secrets involved their driverless vehicle technology. Haliburton just sued a former employee for stealing information, getting a patent on it, and then trying to sell it back to Haliburton. Phillips is suing a former employee for stealing secrets that will give competitors a “decades long head start.” Waymo, Google’s self-driving car program, settled with Uber for theft of trade secrets. The settlement was reported by CNN Business to be a portion of Uber’s equity, estimated at $245 million. In In August, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Northern District of California charged former Google employee Anthony Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google under 18 U.S.C. § 1832 of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA). These cases, and many more like them, involve employees leaving and taking trade secrets with them. Employees come and go, but they shouldn’t take your valuable secrets. You can stop them if you have systems in place, but you have only yourself to blame if you don’t.

Other Barks & Bites for Friday, March 22: Vanda Action at Supreme Court, Apple Has to Pay, and Senators Express Concerns Over Fourth Estate

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Supreme Court asks for the U.S. Solicitor General’s view on whether patents that claim a method of medically treating a patient automatically satisfy Section 101; a jury gives Qualcomm a win in its ongoing patent battle with Apple; the World Intellectual Property Office announces record-breaking totals for international patent applications and cybersquatting actions; Cisco avoids a nearly $60 million damages award at the Federal Circuit; McDonald’s appeals its loss in the EU over its Big Mac trademark; Tesla files trade secret lawsuits against former employees; Peloton faces a copyright suit from music publishers who are seeking $150 million; and Google gets another billion-dollar-plus fine from antitrust regulators in the EU.

Don’t Be Fooled by His Patent Purge: Elon Musk is Just Another Hypocritical Tech Billionaire

In 2014, Elon Musk made Tesla’s patents available for anyone to use for free, stating that “technology leadership is not defined by patents.” Earlier this month, Musk announced again that he had released all of Tesla’s patents, promising the company “will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” Musk believes patents only serve “to stifle progress” and that by releasing his patents he can help get progress moving again—and that progress will somehow win the fight against climate change. But do patents stifle progress, and will releasing patents really have this result? Patents are a trade with a government. The inventor agrees to disclose the invention to the public in exchange for a limited exclusive right to the invention. No one else can make, use, sell or import the invention without the inventor’s permission. The public interest is served because the invention is publicly disclosed, so anyone can improve the invention and patent that advancement. And anyone can design around it and patent that invention. If the invention has commercial value, no doubt many people will jump in and do one or both.

Other Barks & Bites: IP News to Watch, February 1, 2019

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Huawei is in hot water with both the U.S. and UK governments, while Qualcomm has just completed a new patent licensing deal with Huawei; IBM tops a new global list for most artificial intelligence-related patent applications filed; Apple files another appeal of a major patent infringement damages award handed to VirnetX in the Eastern District of Texas; and see how the biggest IP players are doing Wall Street.