Tesla: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

Elon Musk made the following announcement on Tesla’s blog:

“Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”

He continues on to explain that Tesla is open-sourcing their patents in order to jump start the production of electric vehicles. Musk views patents as a “relative weakness” for a company, and a crutch for slow innovation.

Elon concludes:

“Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.”

Read the whole thing: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you