Tesla’s move certainly goes against the grain. But it is hardly game-changing. While patents can be powerful legal weapons against copycat competitors, it bears repeating that they are always temporary.
In the United States, patent protection lasts, depending on the nature of the innovation, no longer than twenty years. After that, the invention becomes free for anyone to use however they like, without any say by the original inventor, for all eternity. Reformers are likewise hailing Tesla’s decision to take the affirmative step of open sourcing its protected innovations, encouraging others to use and improve on them.
But that too is a standard feature of the patent system. As part of the quid pro quo of receiving government-sanctioned protection for her innovation (which, among other prerequisites, must be seriously innovative), the inventor must provide sufficient information — in advance and in detail — for others in the field to duplicate the invention without having to reinvent the wheel.
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Patent law, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is increasingly nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing. Tesla’s move underscores the urgent need for genuine reform. The system’s benefits are quickly being overrun by its costs, particularly in those industries where technological disruption is speeding up, which is more of them all the time. When core technologies are continuously being replaced before the patents on them expire, unneeded protections for inventors become an expensive and dangerous drag on both the economy and future innovation.
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