Ford Super News Ticker Report post Posted May 28, 2015 Ford Motor Company is offering competitors access to its electrified vehicle technology patents – a move to help accelerate industry-wide research and development of electrified vehicles. View the full article Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hybridbear Report post Posted May 31, 2015 This is no news. Ford is offering their patents "for a fee". This is no different than when they license patents now to other companies. Lame!!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Texasota Report post Posted May 31, 2015 This is no news. Ford is offering their patents "for a fee". This is no different than when they license patents now to other companies. Lame!!!This is very common and companies generate a great deal of revenue by licensing their patents. Many companies invest large sums of money into research and development which they then protect with patents. By licensing these patents the company recovers some of their research and development costs and the companies that license the patents also benefit. The alternative is for companies to sit on their patents and take legal action when their patents are violated. Licensing the patents seems like a win-win to me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hybridbear Report post Posted May 31, 2015 This is very common and companies generate a great deal of revenue by licensing their patents. Many companies invest large sums of money into research and development which they then protect with patents. By licensing these patents the company recovers some of their research and development costs and the companies that license the patents also benefit. The alternative is for companies to sit on their patents and take legal action when their patents are violated. Licensing the patents seems like a win-win to me.But compared to what Tesla has done this is no big deal. Tesla has opened all their patents up for other automakers to use at no charge. BMW appears to have done the same thing. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hybridbear Report post Posted June 22, 2015 Here's an interesting article talking about the shift in the industry to be more open with patents. It describes some of the hybrid patents in detail which is interesting since we're Ford hybrid owners. One that I found particularly interesting was the last one described in the article: Finally, we were intrigued by a November 2014 patent issued to Ford for a technology that provides recommended changes to driving behavior. U.S. Patent No. 8880290, titled Driving Behavior Feedback Interface, claims a system that includes a controller that receives input indicative of vehicle acceleration and powertrain output power, calculates an instantaneous acceleration score and outputs a long-term acceleration score based on a previous long-term acceleration score and a forgetting factor weighting the instantaneous and long-term deceleration scores. This information is then outputted through an interface so that a driver is provided with real-time feedback on fuel economy and vehicle range as he or she is driving.Does that screen look familiar?? ;) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
