Tesla is hit by $2B patent troll case from Nikola Motors
electrek.co
electrek.co
"We have a slight laughable lawsuit recently from some company ironically called Nikola. Nikola is suing Tesla. That's hilarious. Fate loves irony. But they're suing us because the way the trucks look, which is absurd. Nobody's buying a Semi truck because the way it looks, or because going to wraparound windshield or whatever. Please."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169027-tesla-tsla-q1-2018-...
Whether that's true or not, it has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the lawsuit.
They certainly aren't all that matters legally, because damage awards aren't the obly remedy in patent cases, injunctive relief is available.
> It's whether you're going to be sued
While damages effect the risk that you will be sued, Tesla is in fact being sued here.
> and lose a lot of money.
Sure, but damages aren't the only costly outcome. In this case, an injunction that forces a non-infringing redesign would be expensive for Tesla even before considering any damage award.
Was the Apple-Samsung patent litigation “patent trolling?”
Oh, and these patents shouldn't have been granted in the first place, they are design patents, and the design is right along the lines of other futuristic looking trucks that still look like trucks.
Yes it does, the key characteristic of patent "trolling" is that the patent owner is not practicing.
I had heard of Nikola before this, because they have been featured on this site, and in other news outlets catering to EV-enthusiasts.
Many patents seem to me to be dumb, or for completely non-novel, obvious things ("one click ordering", etc), but the patent office granted them, so they are valid.
Agree they probably can't show $2B in damages, and on the fire confusion. But in any lawsuit you start off asking for way more than you'll settle for.
Because Tesla has all kinds of money to burn on lawsuits?
Meanwhile the CEO is insulting the financial community that keeps him afloat. I keep hearing how smart he is, but... sometimes...
Shell teamed up with Airflow to build the Starship prototype which will be doing a test run this year.
Sadly, functional requirements don’t trump patent filings (Apple vs Samsung) so Nikola is free to sue everyone whose aerodynamic truck design includes a curved windscreen.
Your opinion about whether these patents are valid or should have been issued is irrelevant. The Patent Office issues parents and leaves it to the courts to determine validity and worthiness.
But Nikola is clearly a real company. And they have the right to defend their IP.
I mean, apparently some large companies like Anheuser-Busch, (people who actually buy trucks) have heard of them, if they announced they are buying up to 800 of them from Nikola...
That said, I do agree that these (and a LOT of design patents) are questionable at best, but I don't have any skin in the game when it comes to the trucking industry.
It's how the game is played. so, I don't understand the anti-Nikola guys. Let's face it, if it works out their approach has some huge advantages over the 4 megawatt-hour packs the Tesla Semi is going to require.
it's all good.
and, no, Nikola is not a "patent troll" in any understanding of the words. The Branch Elonians are only slowly coming to the realization that Tesla has no sustainable advantages-- other than brand. which does have cachet. not sure that helps in Class 8 trucks, though.
For real? I read about them on this site.
I know HN gives Tesla credit for a lot, but there were and are people working on electric semis; Tesla didn't come up with the idea.
>These people are patent trolls pure and simple
(in your opinion)
Previous discussion of Nikola on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11683508
I think most people who follow electric vehicles at all seriously have heard of them.
They came up pretty regularly on HN months to a year ago. I would wager that among people who follow details of everything that happens in the EV industry the name is known.
Wait, what? "Screw you small company, -we've- never heard of you, so why should you be able to defend your patents?"
> But now I cannot get behind them at all after such a clear case of patent trolling. > [...] > A wrap windshield on a truck? That has been around for years before Nikola Motors or Tesla Semi: > [picture of MAN truck with similar design] > Those types of concepts, like a mid-entry door and wrap windshield, *have been around for decades really and the fact that Nikola would patent them and sue anyone who decides to use similar ideas sounds just like patent trolling to me. > [picture that looks like its from the 90s showing a truck with wrapped windshield]
To use a slightly crappy analogy, it's like patenting your ui, not your algorithm.
To use a less crappy analogy, it's like the patents on smartphone case shape and layout that were at issue in Apple-Samsung.
Things could have changed since we last spoke about it, though.
unless— (1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention
Patent applicants are expected to conduct prior art reviews and attempt to determine novelty, but this is done defensively - for the purposes of not wasting money on an obvious failure, or to head off anticipated claims of prior art by justifying the novel feature.
Meanwhile the patent office is expected to search for prior art and issue a rejection if found. To aid in this, there are also mechanisms for interested outsiders to contact the USPTO with evidence for rejecting a patent. Finally, someone who finds themselves infringing on a patent can file for review of the patent - this is the intended mechanism to ensure that people don't have to constantly watch for all patent applications which might harm them.
In practice, the USPTO is fairly good at rejecting things which have already been patented, or are obvious to a layman. But they often miss domain-specific developments which are either obvious to professionals (many software patents) or entered the market without being patented (apparently, this mid-door design). The ex parte re-examination system seems to have been gaining some teeth lately, but isn't sufficiently reliable to prevent patent trolling.
If that’s true, patent applicants fail to meet expectations 90+% of the time.
Patent trolling is an attempt to secure patents for the purposes of making money via lawsuits or licenses far in excess of the patent's actual value, using the threat of legal costs or hefty infringement penalties. This is particularly true when the patented trait is incidental, over-general, or simply granted in error.
So where does Nikola Motors fall?
- They use the patented techniques, and those features are not clearly incidental to the product.
But...
- Their suit claims 'damages' which are a large fraction of their company's lifetime revenue, and presumably an order of magnitude above their lifetime profits.
- A quick check of the side door patent shows that extremely similar products predate the D816,004 patent by quite a lot. The line between "already exists" and "is not a non-obvious advance on what exists" is sometimes fuzzy, but it's not clear why this patent was granted.
So yes - it's a suit conducted to make money in its own right rather than prevent use, claiming unrealistic damages for a dubious patent. By most usage, that makes it patent trolling even if you make products as well.
They have 6.3 billion revenue worth of pre-orders on the Nikola One.
> A quick check of the side door patent ... "is not a non-obvious advance on what exists"
It is a design patent, which covers non-functional ornamental design. Think of it as more similar to a trademark than to a regular patent. It doesn't have to be an advance on what exists, it just has to be aesthetically distinctive.
Yes, and their suit seeks $2 billion in damages - a large fraction of their lifetime revenue.
> It doesn't have to be an advance on what exists, it just has to be aesthetically distinctive.
Good point, my discussion of non-obvious was mistaken, and this probably does justify the wraparound window - it's not the first but it's a distinctive look. I'm still not clear on how the side door patent was granted, since it appears basically identical to designs in production many years ago, but it's not clearly unjustified.
A truck is a truck, you can't patent the form factor of a truck.
> In the complaint, Nikola alleges that Tesla’s electric truck design infringes on a series of 3 specific design patents that they recently obtained for the design of a few features of their Nikola One truck unveiled in 2016 – a year before Tesla unveiled its own electric truck.
Yes, you can patent non-functional design elements of any product.
Is there a specific part of design patent law you're referring to? A special case for trucks?
Seems to clearly indicate these patents should be invalidated.
It goes on to say that patent trolls often don’t make products using the patents, but this is not always the case.
That definition seems a lot better than one limited to a non-practicing entity.
I just wish someone would design a truck that two women could drive as a team. That would be a truly revolutionary design! /s
Likewise, Tesla already has full windshield design in their other vehicles, and it's logical they'd extend that to other vehicles in their fleet of offerings.
On a side note, I don't know what patents Nikola has. They obviously don't have the brand recognition of Tesla and Elon Musk, and so they're clearly scared. I feel for them, however with the laws of economies of scale, in this day and age you aren't creating to support a whole ecosystem you won't be able to compete as efficiently.
Another side note, patents although seem to have some benefit, however it's arguable that they are holding back innovation and a higher quality of life for everyone - potentially suffocating innovation while extracting excess value from everyone, and funnelling money to those who already have the most money to invest to begin with.
It's obviously a difficult subject to navigate as we don't have an alternate system to compare to, well, except perhaps in part the ignoring of patents in China allowed their economy to boom.
Boeing has been patenting the design of its aircraft since the late 1920s...
If you wish to build an Airplane some things are going to look quite similar to how others build it. The same goes with rockets too. May be F1 cars etc. Things like that.
At some point your design will look as physics wants it.
How is this at all true? So you're saying to reach,say, a certain coefficient of drag, there's only one design?
Start with a bumper as per regulations. It has to be the furthest forward part of the vehicle, close to ground level. No pointy aircraft noses on road transport.
Now shape the hulk to sweep air aside in clean smooth lines to sufficient height and width to clear standard sized trailers.
The design goal coefficient dictates how smooth the surface has to be, and the curvature of that surface.
What is left for the designer is flourishes like the profile of the windscreen, how many wipers there are, how they are concealed, and the shape of the door and whether the door opens to the front or the rear.
This is just the Tesla Branch Elonians extending their "the world is against our religion" into bizarre heights of delusion.
Nikola got patents granted. They are a real truck manufacturer, with real customers (including Budweiser's parent who just signed on. Big.), and don't remotely fit into the "patent troll" category.
After a while you just get tired of the All-Tesla-All-the-Time crowd complaining that other people are coming to the market-- probably with better management and more focus.
I mean just look at the sum they're asking for. $2 billion? Based on what is that value determined? Tesla hasn't even officially launched its trucks yet, nor has Nikola. Due to the ridiculousness of the lawsuit alone I consider this "trolling". Also there is plenty of prior art. That's also one of the main reasons why car companies don't sue each other - it would be very stupid on their part to do so.
They've got billions of dollars worth of preorders; there's no sign they've either had trouble marketing a product or given up on it.
Tesla has a functioning prototype.
Which company is the practising entity?
U.S. Pat. D811,944 (issued March 6, 2018) on fuselage shape http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/44/119/D08/0.pdf
U.S. Pat. D811,968 (issued March 6, 2018) on wrap windshield http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/68/119/D08/0.pdf
U.S. Pat. D816,004 S (issued April 24, 2018) on side doors http://pimg-fpiw.uspto.gov/fdd/04/160/D08/0.pdf
The others just look generically futuristic & maybe aerodynamic versions of a current semi.
Pure patent troll rubbish.
I had thought that maybe design patents were a new thing, but a little research shows they aren't. The first was in 1842, and the Coke bottle in 1915 is a notable example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
The only ray of light is that a design patent is invalid if the design has a functional benefit.
The patent applications were filed on Dec. 30, 2015.
Patent applications aren't granted overnight.
Yes.
> Were they submitted after the Telsa semi prototype has been known to the public?
No, the Tesla prototype was unveiled in November 2017; these were all filed on Dec. 30, 2015, as is prominently shown in the documents linked by GP.
Can't you just claim that Tesla's design is 1% different from the drawing and therefore not subject to this patent?
> In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171).
Maybe they did it for a little attention and feel the cost is worth it...
That being said, I do agree that they look nothing alike, so I would not expect this to be a very strong suit.
Because the filed complaint itself seems to admit that the protected fuselage shape is necessary to achieve the ~0.37 drag coefficient that both vehicles have, which it also admits is necessary to attain appropriate range on EVs of this class.
https://www.wintechblog.com/2016/04/functional-features-in-d... is some recent caselaw on this
But if the major deciding issue in a patent case is whether or not a feature of a patented product infringes on another feautre of a patented product - then this could very well be serious.
I don't think they're really building anything.