good guy Tesla Motors...

[Pump Scout]

Publishing on the internet, you say.... time for me to get back to the drawing board then.

[Davros]

Pump Scout: That is one reason why open source exists as opposed to "encouraging public domain releases". The idea is you are the owner and as the owner you allowing others to use it in certain ways. Others are getting access under a licence with terms and conditions. The point of these terms and conditions is to make it non-restrictive, to free them to use it, but still declare ownership. Others cannot patent it on you because you are still the owner. Mind you, all kinds of insanity happens with the legal system of every country, but that applies to traditional patents too.

[PBSteve]

Others cannot patent it on you because you are still the owner.

In theory once something is in the Public Domain you cannot patent it either, I don't think open sourcing things gives you any more protection from that.

[Luke]

That is what Tom Kaye did near 20 years ago.

AND Bud Orr as I remember TK mentioning many years ago....

[Davros]

PBSteve: People try to copyright and patent public domain and prior art is what beats public domain (unless it is against Disney), not lack of ownership. I explained it very poorly, so thanks for bringing it up, but public domain is truly letting it go while open source still has an ownership concept. Just an extra fact. Not a big point. The need to share your changes for the benefit of everyone with open source that is not present with public domain is also a major difference.

[Simon]

Tom patented his gun stuff to protect himself but did everything he could to promote the use of HPA to help make it more available, in part I believe because it made his own products perform so much better.

I am not sure what Budd Could have patented as a lot of what he did was based upon the earlier work of others such as Glenn Palmer. Once WGP was put up for sale they rushed to patent/protect everything they could, including the sound of the gun, and some silhouettes of gun outlines that covered a lot of other people's work. A lot of their patent applications were doubtful in my mind, and I know I killed a bunch of their patents and applications when we took over the IP portfolio at KEE.

[cockerpunk]

its still a business move.

he needs more folks to buy into the super charger network, to make his cars more practical. like anyone who made there money on the internet, the goal is universal adoption. he knows that without a high adoption rate of electrical cars, they will fail.

if i held telsa stock, i'd sell right now. that IP was the only real "hard" value that tesla had, the rest of the stock price is based on hype.

[Ydna]

Part of the reason for this is that Tesla makes batteries for a lot of other companies. It's definitely a business move but it's also very good for the electro-vehicle industry at the same time. The more companies use Tesla's products for their operation, the better off Tesla will be, and the more options will be available for us guys. As time continues the economies of scale will make things cheaper and cheaper.

[Ironpanther]

Tesla seems to be going for a bigger fish than patents. Looks as those they are laying the ground work for dictating industry standards through market dominance. That is VERY valuable and the first step there is getting significant adoption of your system/standardized product. Patents tend to muddle that adoption process.

[skibbo]

Although Tesla released the patents they still have the engineers who came up with them and that is infinitely more important. They can always come up with more innovative ideas.