
All of Toyota’s electric vehicle patents are now royalty-free - e2e4
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/toyota-sharing-its-ev-secrets-free
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seltzered_
Someone has to read the actual legal verbage. For example, to quote
[https://twitter.com/Tweetermeyer/status/1092570451329441792](https://twitter.com/Tweetermeyer/status/1092570451329441792)
on Tesla's free patents - "A common belief is that anyone using Tesla's
patents has to give Tesla access to its patents, but that's not quite
accurate. To meet Tesla's "good faith" standard, you can't have asserted an
EV-related patent or IP right against ANYONE."

Start with the actual press release:
[https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/27512455.html](https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/27512455.html)

which links to:

[https://toyota.jp/cmpn/gp/ma/dc/electrification-
technologies...](https://toyota.jp/cmpn/gp/ma/dc/electrification-
technologies_en) \- whose title is "Inquiry regarding royalty-free
availability of electrification technologies up to 2030"

~~~
sweden
So in order to take advantage of Tesla patents, you can't be suing anyone else
on EV-related patents of your own?

That actually sounds like an interesting and positive side-effect, or am I
missing something here?

~~~
mbrumlow
Sort of sounds like GPL, but for patents. Maybe this is the way to fix the
patent system? Build huge portfolios that grant people use of them so long as
they are not suing anybody for any payments they hold.

~~~
IgorPartola
Except almost worse. You can choose to not use a piece of GPL software. You
might very well accidentally invent something simple that turns out to be
patented.

~~~
jcoffland
How is it worse than if Tesla was aggressively perusing their patents? It's
the patent system itself that you have a problem with. Tesla's patent sharing
scheme only makes things potentially better for other inventors.

~~~
dalbasal
I suppose worse is a matter of perspective, but I think the OP is right that
at some scale, someone could be dragged into this good faith deal, like it or
not.

Independently invent something. Turns out it's already patented, within this
good faith consortium. Now the only way to use it is by participating.
Normally, this kind of thing results in getting sued for royalties.

~~~
mbrumlow
I don't think they would be dragged into it. Just don't use any of the patents
in the portfolio that has this clause. You had no right to use them before the
clause.

~~~
sjwright
Or negotiate a royalty.

------
aurizon
I can see a small niche for hybrids, a small, constant speed engine coupled to
a charger to get you past dead spots with no chargers, but the handwriting is
on the wall for IC passenger vehicles, and possibly for long haul trucks.
While it is true that gas/diesel has a higher energy per tank as well as a
faster tank 'fill' time, this does not make up for the far higher cost per
mile for the liquid fuels, AND the complexity of thousands of small parts
threshing and wearing away. Electric motors are routinely made to run for
100,000 hours and upwards, because they have rotary bearings and only torque
to contend with versus the 2500 rpm of IC engines with bearing impact bangs of
the IC engine many times per revolution, and the timing belts, and the tappets
hammering and the valves burning away, and the muffler and pollution control
gizmos rotting and crumbling away. And brakes, with regenerative braking
(which wears nothing) we have already seen brake linings on Teslas and others
hit 500,000 miles - more? I can see an era of polyurethane(PU) tires also good
for 500,000 miles. They cost more, but they run more and are a lot tougher
against road damage than rubber. Sure, any fool can burn rubber and jam on the
brakes and, in effect, burn $$ to kill them faster, but I am betting that
regen braking as well as more AI in the control box that has the potential to
avoid almost all friction based braking, because that AI knows your route
(mostly - from experience), when to slow with regen for the turns and curves.
The moving hand writes, pauses, points it's thumbs down, and moves on. IC
engines are in a downwards race to nowhere.

It looks like there is no lithium shortage at all. Cobalt looks like a scarcer
element, which adds cost, but electrode design is improving almost monthly and
less cobalt is needed. In addition, cobalt is a recyclable material and this
will soon be almost 100% captured for re-use, as the growing shortage drives
the reward for recycling it.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Electric motors are routinely made to run for 100,000 hours and upwards,
> because they have rotary bearings and only torque to contend with versus the
> 2500 rpm of IC engines with bearing impact bangs of the IC engine many times
> per revolution, and the timing belts, and the tappets hammering and the
> valves burning away, and the muffler and pollution control gizmos rotting
> and crumbling away.

This is why the series hybrids don't really make sense. If you have to add an
engine to generate electricity then it needs a fuel tank, a cooling system, an
exhaust system, etc. By the time you add all of that stuff, you might as well
just use that cost and weight to put in a bigger battery.

There is no technical reason you can't use an arbitrarily large battery to get
arbitrarily long range, it's just that the incremental cost exceeds the
incremental benefit for most people, so the current EVs are targeting the much
larger number of people who don't actually need that much range. They're also
supply constrained on battery production right now, so targeting the niche
that requires a very large battery doesn't make sense yet.

This is somewhat what I would expect to eventually see out of a pickup or
something that competes with a Chevy Suburban. You have a large vehicle, so
plenty of room for batteries in the floor, which you also need to get
reasonable range when transporting heavy loads. But then if you're not
transporting a heavy load, the same batteries provide much more range than a
vehicle which is trying to be spry and sporty.

~~~
ianai
I think battery tech needs to be much cheaper for it to really answer peoples’
needs. But I do see the situations you’re describing. A half ton truck can
afford a pretty hefty battery pack, weight wise. Budget wise it gets pricy
quickly. I wonder what sort of battery could be afforded in a larger chassis
that’d normally go for 90k, though.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> I think battery tech needs to be much cheaper for it to really answer
> peoples’ needs.

Yes, absolutely, which is what's happening. Lithium battery prices have been
falling for years. The price today is too high for a competitive light truck.
The price in four or five years time, however?

------
lr
This is the real "sharing economy"! The planet is not going to be survivable
for humans and many other species if we don't start cooperating. If that means
one has to give up enforcing their own patents in order to take advantage of
these from Toyota, then so be it.

We love Star Trek, where the "...economics of the future are somewhat
different..." where "...we work to better ourselves, and the rest of
humanity..." So maybe this is the actual true beginning of cooperation that
will make our collective future possible...

~~~
megy
Building more cars is not going to be anyone survive. We need to get away from
individual transport.

~~~
dotancohen
Though that may be true from a sustainability standpoint, that is not the
future that I want my children to live in. A future where everyone must like
(go to) the same parks, everyone must go to the same shops, everyone must go
to the workplace accessible from their home or live in the home accessible
from their workplace.

Individualism is gravely important to humans. Getting away from individual
transport is relinquishing all hope of individual determinism.

~~~
abyssin
How about your children breathing the same air as everyone else and sharing
the same planet? Cars are a small exception in the way human have been moving
around.

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dstick
Definitely positive, regardless of motives. One number that jumped out was
23.740 patents in 20 years! That’s almost 23 patents every -week-.

Is that normal for a company Toyota’s size? Do Apple, Samsung and others file
the same amount in their fields?

~~~
rocgf
Surprisingly, or maybe not, IBM is the company that has been producing the
largest amount of patents per year by a huge margin. In 2017 they managed to
get around 9000, about 25 per day.

I used to work at IBM and having your name on patents was one of the most
important things in order to rise through the ranks. Past a point, you could
not go higher without some significant activity in the patents realm. There
were many patent groups, many talks about it, there was a 'patent score' that
people had in their email signature etc. You were also rewarded financially
for each one.

In my humble opinion, this was a bunch of corporate bullshit. I've interacted
with many people who had an impressive amount of patents and I was always
disappointed. Their average patent was something along the lines of: a
different way to use the browser history, a color-based way of handling
support tickets, adding a list of blacklisted websites to a broswer or
similar. It's hard to remember them because they were all unmemorable. Nothing
was of substance or something worth being implemented.

~~~
dstick
Thanks for explaining. Mind boggling stuff... how can things like that even be
patented? By those standards I could have filed a few myself ;-)

~~~
rocgf
> By those standards I could have filed a few myself ;-)

You most definitely can, but you should remember that filing for a patent is
very expensive. :)

This was years ago, so I cannot remember all the details, but I did attend one
or two patent workshops/talks, so I think can can weigh in on this.

Basically, there are a few criteria for a certain submission to be patentable,
the most important of which was novelty. There were some others, such as not
simply combining exiting technologies to create something obvious (IIRC
something called 'inventive step' or something like that), but largely it
revolved around it being new.

As you might imagine, the above is somewhat interpretable, so a lot of these
could go through if they were a tiny bit novel in their approach. Even if your
idea was not patented, your idea might still be published as a white paper
just so that others could not then invent something similar. By exposing that
idea to the outside world, it became public knowledge, so HP could not go and
patent something similar.

I remember being told it's all about the mindset. You don't have to be
particularly bright or have some 'divine' spark, you just needed to take a
problem/functionality/thing and turn it fiddle with it until you get something
new, then do some research (there was special software for this) to see if it
already exists, get someone internal to review it (a Master Inventor, as they
were called), get in touch with the internal lawyers and send it for review.

~~~
fxfan
Is there a guide you'd recommend for filing a patent? I have an idea that I'd
like to patent. I genuinely think its very novel and my goal is to use it in
my work and license it to others.

~~~
rocgf
Unfortunately, I don't know much about that. The only such guides I've seen
were internal documents.

------
azinman2
I can’t tell what their motivation is... it cost a lot of money to file 24k
patents to now just give away. Toyota isn’t exactly a charity or an “open
source” company.

~~~
Pfhreak
My guess is that it's a game theory move.

No one wants to be making electric cars until everyone is making electric
cars.

Everyone wants to make electric cars, but no one wants to step out in front.

Now that we're seeing Tesla succeed, I suspect the bit is being flipped, and a
lot of companies are trying to convince each other that we should all jump
into making electric cars now.

Opening up patent libraries lowers the barriers for others. It's grabbing the
hand of the kid next to you before you all jump off the dock together to go
swimming. It doesn't fundamentally change the nature of the landscape, but it
makes it easier to get started.

~~~
LifeLiverTransp
In addition - you defacto set the standard, without ever holding a single
standardization meeting.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
Is there really an example that would prove that this ever happens? Aren't
patents usually just clever ways of doing things, not necessarily decisions
about the exact dimensions/contacts/voltages/etc. All other manufacturers
could easily just take patents and make their own standards based on them?

~~~
Scoundreller
FireWire failed for its patents from Apple. Intel didn't want to develop
around a port with a $1/port royalty.

It took over another decade to move beyond 5V charging.

~~~
solarkraft
Intel provided another great example of this recently: Thunderbolt 3
controllers used to cost quite a bit, so they weren't included in lower-cost
devices.

They saw that that didn't work out that well for them and made it royalty-
free. Now it's basically the new USB standard.

~~~
rrix2
> Now it's basically the new USB standard.

Not even basically. It is USB 4:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB4)

------
heisenbit
This is a very clever move by Toyota. They are the leader in hybrid and that
market segment is very small. Growing that segment by 100% or even 1000% may
be possible and most of the growth will accrue with them. Certainly most of
the profits as they are already positioned to deliver the most performant,
economic and even more importantly trusted solution.

------
natch
This is great news to the extent that it includes tech for fully electric
vehicles (as opposed to "electrified", a red flag word that includes hybrids
as if they were on the same footing as electric cars).

The "green" halo bestowed on hybrids is really no longer justified. They still
burn gasoline, pollute almost as much as any other car, and have ultra complex
maintenance like any ICE car.

I hope this isn't just a feint to encourage competitors to get mired in hybrid
tech... although in that case the silver lining would be Toyota trying to take
a leading position in fully electric.

Regardless of any possible cynical interpretations, it does seem like a hugely
positive move overall. Since renewables are now price competitive with dirty
options like coal, more and more of the grid will flip over to clean energy,
so all-electric vehicles are going to have a huge impact on cutting CO2
emissions.

~~~
webninja
> Hybrids ... pollute almost as much as any other car.

That’s just factually and obviously untrue. You can tell by looking at the MPG
figure. Any vehicle that burns more gallons of gas per mile proportionally
farts out more emissions per mile.

My 2013 Toyota Camry hybrid is 6 years old now, gets 38-41mpg, and I have
never charged it. It is a rock solid vehicle and I have never had to perform
maintenance on any of the hybrid parts. They just work. Toyota has a
reputation for producing low maintenance vehicles using last year’s
technology. If the battery eventually wears out later on and I don’t fix it,
it’ll get less MPG and be more like every other carbon farting car on the
road. Believe it or not, the car produces more electricity from regenerative
braking than it uses up so the battery is usually mostly full all the time.
The bottle-neck is in the electric motor’s low top-speed. It switches from
electric to gas if you ever go over 40mph and back to electric if you go under
40mph.

There isn’t a big need to be so cynical with hybrids. They’re quite amazing
and incredible to watch and use.

~~~
natch
A Toyota Yaris can get ~ 45mpg.

~~~
webninja
But then you have to drive a Yaris

~~~
natch
But dude... you have to drive a Camry now. Which is... well, you should test
drive a Tesla to get what I mean.

I had a Camry. They are great cars. But you should test drive a Tesla.

~~~
webninja
Hahaha yeah I’d still rather be driving a Tesla

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woodandsteel
I think this is a desperation move on Toyota's part. Hybrids were a hot
technology a decade ago, but they are being replaced by battery electrics. And
I am guessing that Toyota's management is finally realizing that its huge bet
on hydrogen fuel cells is never going to pay off.

It's interesting to contrast this with the other top car manufacturer, VW. It
has decided to push hard on EV's.

------
samstave
ELI5:

You can use these patents, ostensibly, as it pertains to a design of [thing]
that youre making.

However, could you use the actual componentry coming out of a tesla facility
as patented and incorporate it into your [thing]:

I.e. design a car completely designed to comply with the patenet and design of
the tesla sub chassis such that you can modify a 38 Ford to be placed on top
of a tesla drive train system?

The reason i ask this is that i had a former boss at this architect firm where
he did just this, but instead purchased a corvette Z series car which was
“totalled” (fiberglass body was destroyed in a roll) three days after purchase
and put a 38 ford body on top of the chassis that needed minimal repairs.

So now he had a ford on top of the latest corvette model avail at the time.

Id like to do this with teslas...

~~~
perl4ever
There are quite a few people taking old cars such as Porsches and electrifying
them. I think they may be using some Tesla parts.

I would like to take an old car and install a small battery, a small engine,
and a big electric motor. Because if you are all engine you need a big thirsty
engine, and if you are all battery you need a big heavy battery, but if you
just need power for say 10 seconds of acceleration, you can have a small
battery, and if you just need a big enough engine for the _average_ power
usage, you can have a very small engine, and if you have a powerful electric
motor, you can still accelerate quickly.

~~~
gridspy
Just bear in mind that large batteries have a couple more advantages

1\. More battery banks so each one has to deliver less power during
acceleration 2\. More space to distribute any waste heat 3\. Less waste heat
for a given current since we have less current per battery system

So, a small battery bank might not deliver the current you need for your burst
of acceleration.

~~~
perl4ever
Small is a relative term; the comparison is to a battery that provides a
couple hundred miles of range, as people are trying for these days.

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lawrenceyan
Is this like how Tesla “open-sourced their patents” too?

