" We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard."

WOW

What is not to like about Tesla as a company and Musk as their leader? I certainly like them. They offer the best hope yet for some real change for the better in the automotive industry.

I am still surprised about this decision to open up for all of their patents so early. Nevertheless, I guess Tesla feels confident enough that they now are in a position where they cannot be overwhelmed by the still much larger players simply because these other players are so far behind Tesla in their plans to make long-range BEVs and compelling PHEVs. Tesla is well on their way to take 10 to 20% of the global market for private cars costing over 70,000 USD. They need to sell over 100k units per year to get to that point but it seems that they are sure they will get there. They will get to 4k unit per month (48k annualized) by December this year and they should be able to double that number by the end of 2016. When they get to 100k units per year for their 70,000+ USD cars they are too large to be overwhelmed by others in that segment of the market. At that point patents might not matter so much at deterring competition and the benefits of attracting worker talent and appraise car customers from their open patent strategy is probably much more important than the extra competition that open patents will bring.

For the purpose of speeding up the adoption of electric vehicles, perhaps there are other ways to achieve it faster than freeing up Tesla patents. The reason is that in order for others to use Tesla's patents, it would take others quite a while, years, to build up the manufacturing design and tooling. Furthermore, concentrating solely on BEV's cannot realize rapid growth of PEV's due to the bottle-neck in battery manufacturing facility and raw materials, because BEV's requires too much battery capacity in comparison to PHEV's and HEV's.

However, if Tesla would offer to sell its batteries in compact packaging of 10-20 kWh capacity to other major manufacturers for the purpose of making PHEV's, then Tesla would make profit out of the sale, while PHEV's using Tesla's battery technology will offer light-weight and internal space and sale prices on par with existing ICEV's and HEV's and will accelerate the sales of PHEV's greatly.

Either that, or Tesla can enter joint-venture agreements with major ICEV manufacturers to produce a PHEV chassis and drive train incorporating Tesla's battery and electrive drive with a 1-liter 3-cylinder turbocharged ICE for incorporating into various models with different badges, similar to previous JV's between Ford and Mazda, Toyota and GM, Toyota and Sterling, Mitsubishi and Chrysler...etc and the world will greatly benefit from these JV's to produce PHEV's.

It will be the affordably-priced PHEV's with weight and internal space competitive with existing ICEV's that will accelerate the growth of PEV's.

Tesla are trying to establish high speed charging standards. The easiest way to do this is to eliminate any Tesla patent barriers, hence their actions.

Don't get me wrong - I applaud their actions.

@Roger, I am with you on the PHEVs, IMO they are the way to go. You could sell cars with 5, 10, 15, 20 KhW of batteries, just as they sell bhp now.
You could size the battery to your commute (+ a little), The odd long range ICE trip is not a killer, especially if you can do the odd supercharge when they present themselves.
Else fill up with gas and keep moving anyway.

LOL I love this!

And I also love SJC's cynical/pragmatic view of it...it makes perfect business sense to look like the "good guy", actually do some good for the industry and build yourself a loyal customer base for your new GigaFactory batteries!!!

Yes TT.... all Oil people, all repair shops, many posters and many vehicle manufacturers want to perpetuate the ICE mostly out of self interest (their job and/or their pocket book?).

Mr. Elon Musk calls their bluff and does the opposite. He creates jobs and wealth with BEVs and batteries not with ICEVs, oil, gas, diesel, car sales garage clicks etc.

His lower cost extended range (Model EEE?), with improved lower cost batteries, will sell worldwide by the million from 2018 and onward.

His multiple quick charge stations will become a major business endeavour and could make more profits than the BEVs and battery factories combined by 2020 or so. Picking up a quick charge will not be free forever.

Does anybody know whether Tesla patents are actually worth anything? I have never heard anyone say that these patents are limiting the industry.
Batteries: none of importance.
E-motor: nice design but there are many other good designs
vehicle integration: easy to get around
Supercharger: as mentioned by others, this is a tactic to get the standard adopted. TEPCO did the same with the CHAdeMO patents; open to anyone.
Please DO correct me if I'm wrong on these points... I think Tesla is a great company but its patents do not seem to me to be especially important, like the ones owned by Toyota on hybrid powertrains, U of Texas and Hydro Quebec on some battery chemistries, etc.

Here is a list of 249 Tesla Motors patent applications.
http://stks.freshpatents.com/Tesla-Motors-Inc-nm1.php

It is difficult to discredit Tesla's management just because they do thing differently, not the OLD fashion way.

Patents have became lawyers' oversized pay checks. It is time to do without them because they limit and slow progress, unduly raise prices and create useless non-productive legal jobs.

The 'No Fault' car insurance system is a much better solution to get rid of costly useless legal battles.

Harvey,
Patents allow people and corporation to freely post and share ideas without afraid of their ideas got stolen and exploit by others without paying royalty.

In ancient times before establishment of patent office, people tend to keep secret new ideas, new techniques, skills etc. (trade secret, Ancient Chinese secret etc...) and advancements proceeded very slowly. Masters were reluctant to pass on ideas to students, and selected very few of them...Good ideas often failed to catch on.

With the patent system, you are forced to fully disclose how to make and use your invention so that others can learn about it and can design better ideas around it and file new patents around it and hopefully can get patented around the previous patent...humanity is undoubtedly much better served. After 20 years lifespan of a patent, the patent's claimed subject matters will be free for everyone to use, and all potent secrets are disclosed for the world to see.

Now you can look on Google Patent and find out how Thomas Edison design and built all his inventions, and everyone is free to make and sell Edison's inventions. Without the patent system, all Edison's greatest ideas may be lost forever, especially when his lab burned down and he refused to disclose his idea to anyone for fear that they will steal his ideas!

Roger,

They don't care about fees, a few thousand dollars is nothing if it can bring them millions in court. Those "companies" buy patents from defunct companies, they have tons of them. They never take anything to market and are nothing but bottom feeders. Talk to a patent attorney and find out.

That is just guess work on the part of attorneys, they call it a practice because they keep on practicing. If it were that clear cut Apple and Samsung would never have been in court for years.

It is never that easy. My point is the patent system needs to be COMPLETELY restructured from top to bottom. Patents would be harder to get, they would last a shorter time and if you did not take the product to market, you would LOSE the patent.

@SJC,
One potential reform to the current US patent law should be that no patent should be used as a way to prevent the manufacture of any item that can benefit society. An example would be how Cobasys sat on their NiMh patents to keep others from manufacturing large-format automobile NiMh batteries.

A way around this would be that if a patent holder is unable or unwilling to manufacture their invention, or unwilling to keep profit of said manufactured invention to within reasonable limit, and if others are interested in manufacturing the same, upon request for licensing, the patent holder must license the patent for others to manufacture the item for a royalty not exceeding 2% of gross revenues from the sale of said item represented in said patent. This will prevent large corporations from buying patents from potential competitive but better products and keep them from the market.

A legal precedence and legal theory to support the above would be in the anti-trust law and anti-competition law designed to maintain sufficient competition to keep free-market economy functioning.