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Baffled by this earlier today:
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Why Elon Musk Just Opened Tesla's Patents to His Biggest Rivals
Transportation Photograph by Noah Berger/Bloomberg Annoyed, frustrated and exasperated, Elon Musk has decided to give patents away. Well, "give away" might be too dramatic. But on Thursday, Musk did
This move looks drastic at first blush. Tesla has hundreds of approved patents—and many additional ones pending—for all manner of spectacular inventions tied to electric-vehicle technology. Tesla pioneered innovations that lowered the cost and increased the safety of battery packs. Its cars recharge much faster than others on the market, thanks to connector, software, and power-management advances. Now this public company will offer these smarts up to its rivals and ask nothing but goodwill in return.
Marketing smart move? Really now, Musk does not need this – if Jobs was the loudest voice of simplification, then Elon Musk is the father of pure innovation. Tesla Motors is already way ahead of its electrical cars counterpart producers, and Musk understands core principles of innovation and patenting: your patent protection is not there for an unlimited period of time, and he is pushing it to the next level, by making it an “all weapons on display” battle field. It’s like the second-coming of technology, after the industrial age.
Could it be imagined that the pharma industry would do the same with its medicine patents? Only if they revert to actually working on curing rather than gaining more money. Innovation needs vision, and vision needs sticking to the basic reasons for why one is building a product or providing a service.