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Toyota Prius Under Fire For Patent Infringement
tekiegreg writes "According to Auto Service World, Toyota (and possibly other hybrid companies) are guilty of violating a patent with their Prius hybrid Systems. The patent in particular looks like it covers most of how the drive-train and even the braking system of a Toyota Prius functions. The implications of which are big if there is no deal or settlement made (such as ceasing of hybrid vehicles in the United States)."
Remove the braking system. No more patent violation!
Czech language for absolute beginners
Nah.
Stupidity... has a habit of getting its way.
It's the oil companies in disguise!
Demented But Determined.
So if you want a visual of what they're actually talking about, look here because that damned patent site refers to images that are nowhere to be found. I think that linked diagram refers to the numbers that the patent information initially state about the design of it.
My work here is dung.
Theyre patent is pretty complete, but only filed in 1990.
Unfortunately, I think reclaiming breaking energy with an electric motor was thought of, and used much earlier then that.
Brent Jones
Man, people who deliberately use "submarine patents" to try and make money off a popular technology really bug me. As do "technology companies" whose sole business model is to own patents. They wait and see, and if the tech becomes successful, they pounce. If it flops they stay away and let the infringer take the loss.
I respect the rights of patent owners, and I'm not sure how you could legally sanction this berhaviour without harming patent holders' legitimate rights, but the practice is just plain sleazy.
Now it may be that they have had suit against Toyota ever since the hybrid came on the market, and this is just a recent expansion of that suit, in which case they are not being weasels...
Freedom: "I won't!"
The article just says that Solomon is taking their complaint to the ITC to block Toyota from importing more vehicles. ITC can't rule guilt or fine Toyota. If Toyota manufactured the vehicles here, it likely would circumvent anything the ITC could do. There has been no admission of guilt by Toyota so the only other place guilt can be determined is in a court of law. Until the case currently in US District Court is ruled on, there is no guilt. Only accusations.
No. In the case of the article it just would mean Toyota couldn't import hybrid vehicles of this design (presuming they don't license the patent and settle the District Court case). They would either have to make them state-side or find a different design. Beleive it or not, there is more then one way to design a hybrid vehicle. This ruling wouldn't have an immediate effect on other manufacturers of hybrid vehicles although it might set a precident for future litigation.
IANAL. I only read the abstract of TFA, which is not the legaly meaningful part. With that in mind, it seems that the patent only covers a transmission with an integrated electric motor that happens to use a planetary gear (or differential). Does anyone know if 1) Toyota's synergy drive has an integrated tranny/electric motor and 2)said transmission uses a planetary gear?
Google Under Fire For Patent Infringement - bad news.
Microsoft Under Fire For Patent Infringement - good news.
Sun Under Fire For Patent Infringement - depends on wind direction and world series basketball results.
Do we love or hate Toyota Prius?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
FYI: I'm not defending all patents.
That being said: where do you think R&D money comes from?
Once example: You do realize that developing new medicines costs a crapload of money right? You do realize that companies who develop medicines depend on patents to guarantee that it cannot be copied so they can make more money and make more medicines right? Thankfully, the patents expire and the drugs become generics, bringing costs down.
R&D costs money, plain and simple. One day maybe we will adopt the Star Trek method (everyone works for the common good) but I just don't see it happening in my lifetime. Hell I would do it if everyone else would!
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
This actually looks like a reasonable patent -- the inventor did come up with a reasonably novel approach to getting decent efficiency out of electric motors under varying load conditions, and published it via the patent system long ago.
The auto companies pay plenty in patent royalties every year, and if they'd negotiated terms before using this (which may well be tracable to their designs) then I doubt they'd have had to pay much. They may not have to pay all that much now, hard to say.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
How about if you claim patent infringement you have to show that you are using or developing a commercial application for it. This could include licencing for legitimate use (such as is the case for chemical process technology companies)
Developing new medicines costs a lot because of the high barrier to entry imposed by the gov't with the loads of regulation that it's forcing on the market. If such market (and all other) were deregulated, costs would plummet. But hey, regulation is so good - otherwise, how would you stop teh 3vil capital1s7 haX0rz from 0wnzor1^H^H^H^H^H?H^H'sploiting the proletarians?
Global warming is a cube.
Simple solution.. Only the original inventor gets to benefit from having invented something. If the inventor (either private or company) decides to sell it's assets, then any patents become void and the knowledge public domain.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I have to wonder why Toyota would be so negligent in its actions, unless they knew they were not infringing on anything?
The Solomon company uses their technology primarily for boats and not cars, maybe that is why Toyota thought their system was different enough that it didn't infringe on their patents.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Patents that prevent companies to contribute to save the planet should be revoked, or moved to the public domain, or whatever the procedure is. Nobody should be able to force you to stop making efforts to pollute less.
Thank heavens we have those patents to encourage innovation. The invention would never have happened otherwise.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Electric braking and planetary transmissions have bveen around for about a century-- there's probably 1,000 prior patents and prior art in that genre.
With just a preliminary survey like that, Toyota can have a mighty strong negotiating position with the new patent holders. Like "here's $23,000, take it or have to spend about $5 million defending your patent."
My patent law is a little rusty, but doesn't the patent owner have to claim infringement within a reasonable amount of time? How long has the Prius been out - 2 or 3 years? ANd they are just filing a claim now? The upshot is that if I own a patent, I can't just wait for years while it is infringed, and then come in and claim my triple damages based on the other guy's work. I have to challenge within a reasonable amount of time, or else the infringer has "squatter's rights".
Toyota is well known in the racing community for stealing technology. I'm not talking about stealing the design for a valve stem, I'm talking about stealing the design of the entire motor. They aren't even building their own cars for F1, they bought out a company to build the cars for them. I went to the USGP a couple years ago, and when the toyotas broke, everybody laughed at them.
If such markets were unregulated, you'd be sold snake oil.
A couple of cases come to mind: NTP vs. Rim and SCO vs. the world. It's hard to squash these patent extortion schemes.
The more common senario is we give you a million dollars for your worthless patent and you go away and don't bug us anymore. Somehow these nusance companies come up with the money to pay the lawyers. It can cost over a hundred million to defend yourself against a patent vulture. A million (or even ten million) to settle is cheap compared with the alternative.
Cobasys, a Texaco subsidiary, holds a patent for NiMH batteries. One of the reasons for the hybrid itself is that it carefully skirts this patent by having the internal combustion engine as the prime mover. A battery-only or battery-mostly vehicle might be subject to prohibitive license fees. This is why pluggable hybrids have not been commercially produced either.
Oil company conspiracy? You decide...
That is fine, but how about this for an idea. Require companies to sell licenses for their patents to anyone who wants to buy one, if need be on a per unit basis. The company can negotiate a price and if the negotiations fail after a given period of time, then an arbriter is brought in to help force a decision. This keeps some of the competition allowing the market to do it's stuff while reimbursing the patent holder. Since the negotiations will take time you also still give first mover advantage to the patent originator, and they have a chance to establish themselves in a monopoly position before their competitors get into the market.
PFE
if anything - sue 'em for making an ugly car. honestly, how come these new hybrid cars are so nasty?
> That being said: where do you think R&D money comes from?
> Once example: You do realize that developing new medicines costs a crapload of money right?
> You do realize that companies who develop medicines depend on patents to guarantee that it
> cannot be copied so they can make more money and make more medicines right? Thankfully, the
> patents expire and the drugs become generics, bringing costs down.
Pharmaceutical companies do spend a fair amount on R & D. However, it is nowhere near as much as they spend on marketing. The reality is that they are using patents to control the market, not to recoup their R & D investment.
"You do realize that companies who develop medicines depend on patents to guarantee that it cannot be copied so they can make more money and make more medicines right?"
The vast majority, more than 80%, of the patent generated revenues in the pharm industry does not go to R&D. It goes to marketing, administration and comparatively horridly inefficient production. Take a look at any pharmaceuticals financial reports some time.
You do realize that we'd get five times the current amount of R&D if we simply paid for it outright? Or the same amount of R&D for a fifth of the cost? And that's being generous and not counting the likelyhood that a large part of the R&D is comparatively inefficient due to decades of monopoly protection.
You do realize that state-granted monopoly rights is one of the most inefficient ways to generate financial incentives conceivable?
Lesson 1: READ THE CLAIMS.
:)
Note that every claim is either a "base claim", that is, that starts a new description, or is a
"subsidiary claim" that depends or extends another claim.
Lesson 2: READ THE BASE CLAIMS TWICE.
The base claims are the patent's "weak spots" - if you can just dodge every base claim, then
the patent doesn't apply to you.
Notice that in this patent every base claim says "electrical" on both power inputs. That's
a major flaw; this patent has no claims that cover the case of only one electrical power
input and one of a totally other kind of power.
Lesson 3: THERE IS NO INFRINGEMENT IF NONE OF THE CLAIMS APPLY.
The Prius driveline doesn't use an electrical motor on BOTH inputs, only on one. Hence it does
not infringe.
Next?
There's a group of companies developing lithium batteries that have created a patent pool. If your company develops technology for lithium batteries, you pay a fee to get into this group and then you can use for free any lithium patent from any company in the group. Of course, they get to use your patents as well, but with so many people looking out for submarine patents and the fact that your competitors signed a technology sharing agreement, the chance of a lawsuit is minimal.
Really, the company holding this patent does actually use it. From what I gathered it has a lot to do with the braking system being used to charge the battery.
I'm guessing / hoping Toyota and this company will both be reasonable and find a fair way to settle this. Where this isn't a 'completely frivolous' case, where the patent holder is a company setup to make money off it's patents (which it doesn't use), I think they'll at least be reasonable.
This doesn't matter. The patent expires in four years.
Back in 1980-82, I worked for GEC Traction at Trafford Park, Manchester. We had an implemented design to use electro-restive breaking in diesel/electric trains, which we added to full electric trains. We then advanced this in to use with trams and (if memory serves) we looked at putting it on duel-fuel buses. This is back in 1982, so I think this predates this patent.
Even if 99% of those are false hits, that still leaves about 300+ patents that just might have prior art or patent rights that this alleged patent infringes on.
Doesnt look too good for these noobies.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Hmm... Given the push for energy independence, why doesn't the U.S. government simply claim eminent domain, pay out for the whopping three or four remainin years left on the patent at a 'fair market rate' and make the information pure public domain.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
The Myth that R&D funding comes from Patents is seductive... but false. The OVERWHEALMING lions share of all basic research -- from transisters to fuel cells to genetic codes to drug development is funded at least partially if not entirely by you and me: NSF, NIH, and public Universities. We already paid for it. Given the blossoming of computing technologies resulting from (No, not Microsoft, not Apple,...) the Public Domain projects from DARPA, BSD, Linux, imagine the potential flourish of _REAL_ R&D possible if only we could agree that all scientific inquiry belongs to us all. Companies could compete on production quality, not Lawyers.
If patents are, in theory, for the protection of research and innovation, why are not forced the owners to use the technology in a comercial product in a few years from the concesion, or dedicate it if they don't? I mean, it's much easier to patent something to prevent competition than to actually research and develop a product.
DON'T PANIC
Will all of the cars cease at once, or will it be one driver at a time who finds their car stopping in the middle of the day? Will it be a gradual stop, or a sudden stop? And how about hybrid systems already in use in Honda, Ford, Komatsu, etc. engines, as well as locomotives? Will those cease, too?
Perhaps production/distribution will cease, but that's about it.
When I go to the Motorcycle Show in Paris, France in 1991 I can see a electrical motorcycle from Swiss engineer who work just like that ! Since the motorcycle have more than 2 years at this time, this patent is void !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
The hideous production is due to laws governing the licences - you can't optimise a production process like you can on other chemical production plants as if you change the process at all you need to get relicenced.
The reality is Toyota is big enough to buy out this company anyway, which is probably what they're looking for.
Also the regenerative braking system is something toyota can defend quite well, after all scope does play an important role in patent disputes.
It's hard to tell what's left of the SCO case. As PJ at Groklaw said, the whole thing may boil down to a simple but weird contract case.
The reason I mentioned SCO is that it is an example of a very small company trying to hold several much larger companies to ransom. It is not an exaggeration to say that IBM/Novell/Autozone/DaimlerChrysler/RedHat have spent hundreds of millions of dollars defending these cases.
The word you want is "nimium".
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
First, unlike many patents, this one seems fairly specific, and represents to me the sort of things that the patent process should be protecting. That said, I think it would be interesting if the patent system was set up in tiers. That is after you file a patent you have 'X' amount of time (say ~1-3 years give or take) to produce a working example of said patent, if not then the patent is invalidated. If you succeed then the patent is rewritten to the specific working example and extended for a reasonable period of time. This should prevent vague patents and should help eliminate submarine patents to some extent.
--- Nothing To See Here ---
Well, the problem is that most of the time pharmacy companies use public funding for their research...
/. article on the subject, t'was few month ago...
So it's mostly a win win situation for them.
Too lazy to search the
what, so the medicine can be sold without actually testing to see if it works, or whether or not the side-effects are livable?
Curing the common cold is no good, if a side effect of the drug is cancer or parkinson's or becoming a Michael Bolton fan.
You are correct, provided you are willing to risk an explosion See the "Warning" section. Lithium batteries are not used in automotive applications due to their volitile nature. I believe some new technologies are upcoming to mitigate these risks.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
the patent itself disqualifies regenerative breaking as being applicable to this situation.
I say this because stating a term 'regenerative braking' without supplying a definition or method implies that 'regenerative braking' was an established term before the patent was files. it is quite obvious that if a braking method is called 'regenerative' then some system would be used to collect or use that power, else it would be called 'electric braking' or 'magnetic resistance breaking'
though that patent may hold up with reguards to the 'electric transfer case' this would not halt hybrid developement but force manufacurers to not use a gearbox to accept power from the electric and internal combustion engine. they would simply have to use an approach more like honda's where the electric motor assists the crank shaft or where the electric motors are wheel hub motors, effectively skirting the patent.
The pace of change is increasing dramatically, 10 years is plenty to recoup value on research if that is the real purpose of patents. Beyond that patents expiring sooner means more can easily be built upon that patent freely.
Every time a patent story comes up, people always point out that the developer needs to have his invention protected. However, a patent does more than just prevent people from copying the inventor's invention. A patent prevents anyone else from independently developing the invention. This is why the invention needs to be non-obvious, which sadly seems to have effectively dropped from the patent approval process. Who protects the independent inventor who happens to be working on the same idea and developing a similar device independently? It is at least as important to protect this independent inventor as it is to protect the patent filer.
The whole patent system seems pretty ill-conceived to me. I don't particularly have a better solution, but strong enforcement of the prior art and non-obvious criterion would be a good start. The problem in my mind is that the whole patent system is based on the premise that inventions are developed from scratch. This just isn't the way most progress is done. Almost all inventions are combinations or refinements of existing technology. Sometimes those combinations/refinements are a large leap, sometimes they are rather obvious next steps.
In the case of hybrid cars, it's a combination of existing internal combustion engine and electric engine technology. The ground breaking part isn't the combination so much as it's the design to make a practical system. It's obvious that the technologies could be combined, it's not that much of a leap to see that it could possibly improve gas mileage based on existing understanding of effeciencies, but it's very unclear how to put the whole thing together such that you actually end up with better gas mileage.
Regenerative braking has been used for years every diesel [actually diesel-electric] locomotive uses it ever wondered why a locomotive has all those fans on top ?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I'm all for innovation, enhanced fuel efficiency, alternative fuels and all that. However, I have a fundamental problem with hybrids. Hybrids are an overly complex method for squeezing out a little extra mileage.
There are two reasons why they've been attractive. The first is that they're fashionable, especially with the celebrities driving around in them. But even then, the Prius has been more successful than any other hybrid not because it's superior, but simply because the styling is different from most cars. It looks futuristic, it looks like a hybrid. the car is essentially a fashion statement.
The second, less perceptable reason for your average consumer, is that hybrids don't feel like they're equipped with a small gasoline engine. The fuel efficiency all comes from the fact that the engine is small, not that there's some great leap in technology in the car. The distinction is that the electric motor provides additional power preventing the car from feeling too sluggish. In some cases the electric motor can motivate the car on it's own, but that only applies to the Prius and Ford hybrids, the Civic still needs the engine to get it going. It's only under a limited set of circumstances that the engine can fully take over anyway.
Then there's the premium a hybrid commands over a normal car, and the fact that the batteries themselves are extremely expensive, and are rated for, at most, 100,000 miles only under ideal circumstances. Then there's the fact that batteries can be highly polluting, both during manufacturing and disposal.
If you wan't real fuel efficiency buy a car with a 1 liter engine like are available in Europe. The car is going to be extremely sluggish, but it will get you from point A to point B. You can drive it like a normal car and still expect the kind of mileage hybrids struggle to match. If you want to go one up on that, get a small-displacement diesel which get even better mileage. Although, those cars tend to pollute considerably.
As an interim step I think hybrids are perfectly fine. My concern is that hybrids are going to turn into cash cows for automakers and they're going to get fixated on them neglecting development of far superior technologies.
What I predict is that the American automakers will go nuts over hybrids like they did over SUVs. By the time they've saturated the market with them and have to offer massive discounts to get them off their lots the foreign automakers will already be introducing new technologies. Man, I'd like to know what kind of idiots are running those companies.
Some of the cost compared with general chemical industry undoubtedly derives from that, yes, but compare with generics manufacturing. As far as I can tell, the protected segments of the industry appear to spend an inordinate amount of resources on cost of sales compared to the heavily competetive unprotected segments.
I heard a comment from a mother on the playground this past summer regarding Splenda - apparently it achieves its desired effect by adding a hydroxyl (OH) group to the sucrose molecule. This makes it indigestable, apparently - so it passes through your system. (I'm no chemist & I'm paraphrasing). In any case, apparently this method is also what makes a lot of the pesticides and such so devastating to our environment (and so long lived) - they cannot be broken down in the food chain, so they persist and accumulate (somewhere).
...since the US hybrid car makers have to pay royalties to Toyota for using their hybrid system. As mentioned in advertisements, Ford is planning on releasing numerous hybrid alternatives to their standard vehicles by 2010. Either Ford will have to scrap those projects (which will just be throwing money out the door), take a loss for every vehicle sold, or pass the cost onto the customers... if the guy holding the patent even lets the automakers use his "patented" technology.
All automotive patents go into a common pool established in {i think] 1927 so if Toyota pays off every other car maker can use it
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Pharmaceutical companies do spend a fair amount on R & D. However, it is nowhere near as much as they spend on marketing.
k Tich and the resulting devistation to the prospects of a rewarding career as a chemist was just too depressing.
Indeed. Their primary business is marketing and they happen to have a bunch of chemists as well. Plus the consolidation of the chemical companies into GlaxoWellcomeSmithKlineBeechamDaveDeeDosyBeakyMic
Good. Hybrid technology is a fad and it's not sustainable. It's a cool geek toy and I'd buy a hybrid with no price premium, but not any wierd sense of "doing the right thing."
That's not to say that something mustn't be done; hybrids are just not the way to do it. It's unfortunate, but tough.
--Jim (me)
>Man, people who deliberately use "submarine patents" to try and make >money off a popular technology really bug me. As do "technology companies" >whose sole business model is to own patents. They wait and see, and if the >tech becomes successful, they pounce. If it flops they stay away and let >the infringer take the loss. Why is it this a sleazy thing to do? What if you have a great idea for an invention but you can't afford to do anything with it, or get backers for your idea? Why let someone else with deep pockets come along and "invent" the same thing and reap all the benefits for an idea you had first? Further, what is wrong with buying up patents? It's nothing more than futures trading. It's an investment with a risk and a hope of future payoff, just like any other investment. Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/p atdesc.htm
Although, the length of utility and plant patent protection (patent term) was previously seventeen years from the date of patent grant, utility and plant patents filed after June 8, 1995 now have a patent term of up to twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application. Utility and plant patents which were applied for prior to June 8, 1995, and which were or will be in force after June 8, 1995, now have a patent term of seventeen years from the date of patent grant or twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application, whichever is longer. Utility patents are subject to the payment of periodic maintenance fees to keep the patent in force. Patent terms can be extended under some specific circumstances. See the U.S. Code Title 35 - Patents for a full description of patent laws.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Remove patent system!
For easy pior art just look at any train engine. At first they just dumped the excess but now it is used.
I know there's significant prior art out there, so this should be very easily challenged ... as well isn't there something in the yankee patent office about not being able to patent the obvious ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
-b.
Seventeen from date of issue. This was granted in November 1991.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
All I know is I can tell when the fast food place thought it would be cute to save (money? effort? inventory space?) by hooking up the splenda line to the regular tap. Oh I can't taste the difference, but two sips of splenda and *bam* instant nausea.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's not a patent on regenerative braking, it's a patent for a rather clever use of planetary gears with two motors to get infinitely-variable output speed (and regenerative braking) without excessive stall-condition losses.
Do, please, at least read the links before ranting. I realize that this is /. and it's the local custom, but frankly twits with more opinion than information are a glut on the market.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Hybrids are overly complex, require expensive battery replacement. And are only marginally better then their regular counterparts in cost over their lifetime.
We are far better off investing in both straight electric and high efficiency diesel technology. Both are easier and cheaper to manufacture and allow for a wider range of fuel sources.
Agreed. If you would like to recharge your car with the same energy in the same time as you fill your fuel tank with gasoline, it would require electric current at thousands of ampers at common plug voltage (consider 400 Volts, 3 phases).
No recent batteries are capable of such superfast charging. Also the cable has to be very very thick.
I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.
Actually, it's based on both: seventeen from issue or twenty from initial filing, whichever is shorter.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Someone above pointed out that Ford is paying royalties to Toyota for the hybrid technology, but they left out a critical point - Ford isn't actually using Toyota's hybrid technology - they created their own in-house that was so close to what Toyota beat them to market with, that they decided to be on the safe side they would license the technology from Toyota to avoid litigation.
It's hard to be an apologist for Toyota on this one when they have been using their own patents on the technology to collect royalties from another company already. Really, Ford and Toyota both should have been paying this other company from the beginning.
Toyota isn't this benevolent company. They make hybrids because it makes good business sense (if not profit, which arguably they do now). They are using their patents with other automakers in exactly the way this other company is attempting to.
There have certainly been some interesting innovations that make modern hybrids possible since then, primarily the interesting motor/generator/transmission gadgets, but the fundamentals that are critical to all hybrids go back way further.
I can just picture SCO owning the company that's suing Toyota.
Yup, Check out these guys Valence. They apparently make a variant of li-ion or li-po which has reduced dangers of heat buildup in banked cells.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I can taste the difference between these chemical sweeteners and real sugar. And even if the taste would be disguised by other tastes, I would still notice the extra thirst and fake feeling of hunger I often get from these sweeteners (funny how things that are supposed to make you eat less calories, incite to eat more). I just avoid sweeteners and I avoid eating too much sugar. The tendency of many people to consider real sugar as toxic like HCN is ridiculous IMHO. The most ridiculous thing I've ever seen are "light energy drinks"...
no it's not! using petroleum products to generate electricity is pretty expensive. The bulk of the US grid comes from coal from this reason. When they have to burn oil they hates it!
Plug in hybrids are a great idea and you'll be seeing them at the dealers as soon as they add the tech and the laws to start charging drivers by the mile. The reason they don't have them yet is because plug ins and pure electrics skirt the road fuel tax. It's always been a political issue,not an engineering issue mainly. The best way to beat that now in advance is to get a regular hybrid and do the modding yourself, then add a solar charging station for your ride at home.
all your scientific inquiry are belong to us
If you read their SEC filings, the line item that exceeds R&D is Marketing and Administration.
To my knowledge, no pharmaceutical company has every provided a further breakdown of the latter line item.
Do it's disingenuous at best to say they spend more on Marketing than on R&D.
Novel idea? Bullshit, it should be obvious to anyone working in that field, and even to me years before 1991 (I was figuring out ways of adding CVT to my brother's RC car). Back then (and before) tons of people were doing infinitely variable transmissions, slapping on regenerative braking to such is NOT a novel idea.
The problem with ideas is usually getting a chance and financing to actually do the implementation. I didn't have much in financing to actually modify my bro's RC car...
Personally, I figure with 6 billion people in the world patents that last longer than say 7 years are a stupid idea (and software patents should be prohibited). If you can't make money within the 7 years, too bad. There are so many people who'd come up with the same ideas, and it's just they don't have the means (or time) to patent all of them or fight the patenting of something they'd already thought of years ago, but thought it was pretty obvious (e.g. one-click, or this silly patent).
Toyota's hybrid and regenerative braking design is not really innovative. But they're one of the few car manufacturers who could make a practical _implementation_ for passenger cars AND actually made it available.
I mean, even I can come up with an idea for a car with electric motors, hydrocarbon fuel-cells, catalysts (for cleaning the petroleum/hydrocarbon fuel, and splitting the fuel), regenerative braking, energy storage (battery/capacitor bank).
e.g. petrol -> filter+ catalysts ->fuel-cells (e.g. hydrogen fuel cell + carbon fuel cell) -> energy storage <-> motor/generator.
(and alternative could be to use catalyst+ air + water + hydrocarbons to generate the alcohol for an alcohol fuel cell, which could be less troublesome than the carbon fuel cell).
Once the battery/capacitors are full, one could also use regenerated energy to create fuel for the fuel cells from the fuel cell waste (e.g. electrolise water), but that probably makes things more complicated.
BUT the implementation part is the main tricky bit. So there isn't such a car yet.
But it would be great - think of it, no need to muck around with storing and distributing troublesome hydrogen (hydrogen is a stupid idea too), the cars just run on petrol like old-style cars, but they are just a LOT more efficient.
cool, in like 50 years I can sell my septic tank back to the splenda company.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
...I would still notice the extra thirst and fake feeling of hunger...
The TV said 2 days ago, these fake sweeteners are actually bad for you, because when the tongue tastes sweetness, the body automatically produces insulin so that it can break the sugar down. But if it's fake sweetness and no sugar enters the system, the insulin attacks the sugar already in our body. The effect? We get hungry...
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
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Whether away from home or office, travelers can access the Internet with Wayport's help. The company provides high-speed fixed-line and Wi-Fi (802.11) wireless Internet access in hotel rooms, airports, and meeting rooms, allowing users with laptops equipped with Ethernet network cards to access the Web, company networks, and e-mail for a fee. Major customers include Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Want fries with your Internet access? The company has also announced it will be providing wireless Internet access at 8,000 McDonald's locations in the US. Major investors include Sevin Rosen Fund and New Enterprise Associates.
There are cases where solo inventors or smaller companies come up with great ideas, but lack the funds to implement. In this case, they sell off to a larger company that pays them for the concept, and may have the funds for the actual implementation.
Perhaps your concept would work in the case of unimplemented ideas. Inventors could also try selling unpatented ideas but that would make it much easier for the larger corps to rip them off since there could be no patent violation counterclaim.
It was hard to read it.
The Prius is pretty much unheard-of in the UK and EU. There are a few hybrids about, but I've seen *one* Honda Insight in the past 12 months. No-one wants the expense and complexity of hybrids, when diesels are so good.
From their website
"NASA Connection. NASA has supported Electric Wheel development since 1994. A space vehicle version of the patented Electric Wheel powered NASA's Sojourner Mars rover.
In return for the right to use our technology in space vehicles, NASA set up an Electric Wheel Working Group, consisting of engineers from universities, government and industry, under its Mid-Atlantic Technology Applications Center (MTAC). With the Working Group's help, Solomon Technologies has been able to test and refine its electric drive system technology, establish cost-effective manufacturing procedures and develop a business plan to introduce our technology and products to a widening circle of markets that ultimately will include the passenger car."
...patents exist to promote innovation and companies exercise them to provide the best products possible in a competitive marketplace to allow consumers to purchase the products that they want most.
That's a fantasy, of course. I understand that in reality the patent system exists to ensure that vendors can lock customers in to specific technologies, regardless of the quality of the product, or to lock customers out of other technologies. And thank God for that! We can't have people willy-nilly spending money on other companies' products just because they're better!
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
In a case such as this I would this that there should be some clause within Emainent Domain that would allow the government to null and void the patent. If ever there was a good case of something being used for the greater good, this is it.
Basically, it works like this:
At this point, it becomes interesting. If Little Guy doesn't investigate the system Big Company is using, he may never realize his patent is being infringed upon (especially in the case of where the item in question is a very small, but necessary piece in the design - like a special buried sensor, or new screw, or something). Big Company is banking on the fact that if they can sell the product for a long enough period of time, they may be able to sell it until the patent expires (either via natural expiration, or when the Little Guy inventor no longer can afford the maintenance/renewal fees, which are pretty large), and nobody catches on. If Big Company is fairly lucky, they get to sell it for a long while, until they get caught by Little Guy (or someone on his behalf), and a settlement is reached. In this case, Big Company still "wins", as they have the distinction of being the ones who brought it to market first (in the public's mind), despite what the history books read (ie, the Tesla vs. Edison/Marconi, if you will - or P.T. Farnsworth vs. RCA). Little Guy's name fades, Big Company's name continues on...
It is all a game to Big Company's - the game being to rake in the most cash, and damn any consequences, because ultimately they have the cash to get out of really paying any form of a real price. In some cases, what they do is build the product with said invention included, patent it internationally (because Little Guy generally can only afford to patent his invention in his home country - yeah, I know there is the Berne Convention or whatever which covers international patents and such, but it don't really mean much in the "real world" which Big Companys play in), and sell it internationally (except in the other Little Guy patent holder's home countries) - raking in the profit further (if they can sell it in China and India, they have almost half the world market right there). Worst case scenario is the product makes its way over here via third-party distributors (not automobiles, but other items, typically smaller things like toys, auto accessories, etc) - and the third-party distributor is taken to court by Little Guy (if he can afford it), and if he is lucky, he gets a settlement, or something - which may cover his expenses of the attorney, maybe a little more.
Unfortunately, this is how the world works. I have seen it in action (in my case, my brother-in-law had to defend a couple of his patents which he has held since the mid-1970's). It sucks, if you are the Little Guy...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I had an R/C car in the 80's that had regenerative breaking. In fact, just about ALL electronic speed controllers had regenerative breaking back then - since the little cars don't have break pads they either regenerate or short out the motor
The Figure 1A in the patent looks more like a Chrysler K car than a Prius. Also, the transmission in Figure 2 looks more like the transmission on a McCormick Farmall tractor with the option power take off. Maybe the inventor was influenced by previous art or one of those Iacocca TV commercials from the '80s.
I heard a comment from a mother on the playground this past summer regarding Splenda - apparently it achieves its desired effect by adding a hydroxyl (OH) group to the sucrose molecule.
That mother was wrong- they remove three hydroxyl groups and replace them with chlorines. C-Cl bonds are stable but rarely found in nature. This makes them indigestible and also environmentally persistent.
Why "redundant"? I would mod it more along the lines of "funny" or "insightful" myself, and as another AC replying to parent notes, a second post being redundant, howabout that logic there... Look at the timestamp. It's the same MINUTE as the first post.
And it's so true. Every events like this, my own reaction always goes "see, now people must see the insanity and unreasonable arbitraryness of our patent system! . . . oh, who am I fooling."
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
>This actually looks like a reasonable patent -- the inventor did come up with a reasonably novel approach
a chines/Woods_Dual_Power.S196.A1092.html
The Woods Dual Power Coupe combined a gasoline engine and an electric motor through an elegant planetary gear system like that of the Prius.
It came out in 1917. http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_M
But essentially you are right, except for the AM-talk-radio terminology. Let's use the term "temporary technology". Someday, gasoline will be $10 per gallon, and other technologies will be cheaper. Hybrids will be considered quaint kludges, collector's items, and there will be an aftermarket for handbuilt, ungodly expensive battery kits.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
He started all that about ten years ago. In that time, prostate cancer death rates have dropped by half, and researchers in the field give Milken most of the credit for that. Now other philanthropists are following his example.
Really, if you think about it, there are a lot of sick people with pretty strong non-commercial motivation to fund cures for diseases.
By reading the patent it seems to cover only hybrids, that use electric motor in combination with the vehicle transmission to create a sort of CVT by utilizing differential gear. This obviously does not cover many other hybrids where the electric motor is not part of transmission such as Honda Civic. In Honda electric motor sits just on the flywheel and simply adds extra moment to the engine optuput but does not provides for variable transmission gears. Other hybrids have electric motor that drives rear wheels and traditional driveline drives front wheels. Those also are not affected by this patent. The regenerative braking is not part of this patent and obviously cannot be, since such braking is used in electric locomotives since theye were developed in the first half of the previous century. The patent itself might be even stroke down by Toyota, since differential gear exists for over a century and it's purpose was always to allow for either split power , split rotation speed functionality or the opposite to combine two different inputs into one controlled, so in some sense it is obvious solution and previous art. With current Toyota cash reserves it might be easy for Toyota to defeat the patent. But on the other hand they might chose to settle since it might be easier and cheaper. JAM
I beg your pardon, but I have seen vehicles with regenerative braking my entire *life*... and I'm well into my fifties.
Or are 100% of all non-steam locomotives too "old tech" for the folks here?
Please note, btw, that ALL "diesel locomotives" are actually 'hybrids", using a diesel engine to generate electricity to run electric motors.
I'd say that prior art takes regenerative braking out of the so-called infringement.
mark "yes, I am into trains...."
Just a couple of points came to mind...
1. Mr. DeVecchis says Solomon Technologies chose the ITC to file the complaint because of their technical depth. What about their depth in law? Could using the ITC be a way so as not to use the courts? And...
2. Doesn't this guy sound a lot like Darl McBride? Same sort of posturing...talking about protecting their "valuable intellectual property". Are they related? Cloned? Just wondering.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Having sold Toyota's, and having family members that sell Ford's, from what I understand, Ford couldn't make their technology work in time to make it too market, so they licensed Toyota's first gen hybrid technology (01-03 Prius), while Totota kept the 2nd gen technology for themselves (2004 models +).
Just wanted to clarify the issue....
You sold Toyota's what?
Your family members sold Ford's what?
The bigger problem I have for this practice is that I don't see a market self-correcting mechanism for it. Since these patent-bank companies don't bother to make or sell anything, it's not like we as consumers can even choose to ignore them out of existance.
That sounds all fine and dandy except for one thing. Large corporations rarely fund their own R&D, its usually small research houses funded by private VC that do the research and development of new products in the drug industry. Then the large corporations buy up the research (for as low of a price as possible), patent it, then stifle the generics industry as long as they can until the product is legally forced into the open. This is whats known as innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Usually costs are recouped within 18 months, then its a lifetime of profit.
The prius gains more from ENGINE BRAKING than physical regenerative brakes. When you are coasting, your turning the genny.
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I had the pleasure of "Borrowing" one for 1 month. I got about 55 mpg with it, mostly highway. The owner currently gets 45. 45? thats 12 more mpg than my 5.7 liter 300+ hp formula gets when I drive it on the freeway.
The main differance you state is true. Performance changes everything. When I am heavy on the throttle (under my normal driving there's a 68.4% chance I will stomp on it at any given moment...) then the fuel economy drops to about 12 mpg. Still pretty good.
But here comes the kicker.... and proving your point....
When he drives like a normal person, he gets 45. If you drive a geo like a normal person why do you only get 25-30? They are underpowered.
a geo that claims to get 45 on the freeway, might do so if it is flat, but if you carry me and my prius owning friend up the pass to go hiking, it would not be so great as it would be floored the whole time up the pass, where as my car on cruise would be sitting @ ~ 20-30% throttle, and the prius would do fine, till the batteries go down, then it turns into a weight hauller using almost full throttle to maintain speed.
What do I want out of a car? I want my cake and to eat it too. I want one of these!
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_hom
I am very Price:performance oriented, which is why I drive an F-body (hopeing for a new 'Vette in '07.) But I would love to have the "normal driving " fuel economy of my prius friend with the same performance as my car.
This makes them indigestible and also environmentally persistent.
Plus, they make you crap more explosively than you might have even thoguht possible.
The first time I had ice cream with Splenda, I could not taste the difference from sugar, but I nearly banged by head on the bathroom ceiling as I rocketed off the bowl about an hour later.
But I would love to have the "normal driving " fuel economy of my prius friend with the same performance as my car.
I canna change the laws of Physics, Cap'n.
Have a chat with Q.
KFG
To be a patent attorney and/or patent agent which is neccesary to practice before the US Patent office, you must have a hard science degree and/or background before you can even sit for the test. The bulk of registered patent attorneys have an engineering degree of some type.
The prius gains more from ENGINE BRAKING than physical regenerative brakes. When you are coasting, your turning the genny.
Oh, and this is regenerative braking It doesn't matter which particular system the braking comes from.
The best way to achieve regenerative braking in an electric is to use hub mounted motors and reverse their polarity when you wish to slow down, turning the driving motors into resistive generators.
KFG
How is this unscientific scaremongering crap rated insightful by a supposedly intelligent site like /.? For a rebuttal, here is a letter published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet on 7/3/99 regarding this topic:
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
And even in this kind of hybrid regenerative braking can result in a net loss of fuel economy if you are primarily driving it at constant speed on the highway, because you don't do much braking in the first place.
Now, I'm not overly familiar with the Prius' electric motor system, but I do know that AC-electric drive motors have regeneration built in by nature of their design. While a DC electric car has to have a separate generator to recharge their batteries, AC cars such as the EV1, ACPropulsion's system, and Siemen's systems (as sold by Metric Mind) all have regen without any extra hardware.
I heard from someone who had an EV1 at an EV club meeting. They took it on a 200+ mile round trip. Going uphill they had to stop & charge at ~60miles, but coming home they got a free ride down the hill...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
As far as I can see, the patent simply describes an epicyclic gearbox used in a car, with an electric motor/generator on the third shaft. The epicyclic gearbox is not at all novel (it was used in the Model T Ford). While using it in conjunction with an electric motor is a good idea, I don't really think it would count as novel or non-obvious. The epicyclic is the prototypical three-way gearbox, and thus would be the obvious solution to allowing two engines (petrol and electric) to drive the wheels of a car.
Taking another angle, large Japanese companies like Toyota tend to be very careful about patents. If they haven't settled yet, they probably know they can win.
Lithium batteries are not used in automotive applications due to their volitile nature.
Yes, thank FSM that all the car and trucks on the road are powered by a 15 to 30 gal. tank of HappyJuice(TM) that is completely non-flammable and never evaporates into extremely explosive vapors like that stupid gasoline.
Wow. So then artificial sweetners are the perfect cure for Type 2 diabetes!!! They promote insulin production! That's terrific. One less dibilitating disease to worry about. Thanks, Diet Coke!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Other way around -- they replace hydroxyl groups with Chlorine atoms. Some opponents of splenda/sucralose have referred to it as "chlorinated sucrose" because of this, though that's a simplistic view.
What is known is that some users of splenda complain of kidney pain (I'm one of them, so I have to avoid splenda in soft drinks), and there is some evidence to suggest that splenda increases the risk of kidney stones. I can't really speak to other health effects (e.g., neurological).
Personally, I'd recommend people look into Xylitol as a sugar substitute. It ain't cheap, but you can bake with it and cook with it (with a couple exceptions -- breads won't rise with pure Xylitol, for instance). It has a low glycemic index. Best of all, it's totally natural, and our bodies can metabolize it. Well, OK, some people of Mediterranean Jewish descent can't metabolize Xylitol -- it's a 5-carbon sugar-alcohol, and some people lack the gene to make the right enzyme for that; the condition is called pentasuria. Xylitol has the added health benefit of promoting good teeth and gums, and retards the growth of some bacteria such as streptococcus. More info at http://www.xlear.com/
A horse's head in your bed
Hold on there Blue-Collar Slashdotters! Hear me out before you go representing your Union support by flamebaiting this post!
American Automobile Manfactures suck! We will continue to suck as long as we have the current adminstrations at Ford, GM, and Mopar and Big Oil. Who runs these companies? Surely it is not the Unions. Instead, it is Rich White Men who lie to us! Who say "we support our Union works". Who tell us that they are spending millions on alternative fuel research which actually goes to pay off our government to drill in the Artic, to bulid a pipeline through Canada, into the Midwest United States. Who rape us at the pump at $3/gal!
Who had a better Christmas this year? The suits or the factory workers?
One thing I would like to tell you guys about is the Ford Assembly Plant in Hazelwood, Missouri. Mayor T.R. Carr of Hazelwood, St. Louis County Executive Charles Dooley, and Missouri Governor Matt Blunt have bent over backwards just to keep this factory open that Ford constantly breaks their promise of keeping it open. Ford is stealing money from the city of Hazelwood! They are taking the money and the they lie when they say they will fight to keep it open! This is the factory that makes the Ford Explorer. Why isn't Hazelwood assembling Explorers with hybrid fuel systems? Because Ford won't let them!
The Oil Companies that are paying off Ford, GM, and Mopar have told the manfacturers that if any factory in North America attempted to install hybrid fuel systems on their vehicle they would cease funding them. As a way to put a gun to their head, they would also have to shut down plants and blackball the corporation. The Oil industry is doing the same thing with companies that build military and commerical aircraft, industrial machinery, various energy co-ops and corporations, a few technology corporations, and the United States Governement (as if you didn't figure that one out.)
They only way we will ever break free from these profitiering blackmailers is to tell them to literally "F*** Off!".
Capitalism will do us in. Don't kid yourself.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I don't remember seeing anyone state that they've run out of battery power on a 2nd gen prius on an uphill climb. Certainly not on most any climbs out there. 1st gen, I have, though.
you obviously didn't see the video of the AC propulsion car eh?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Diesels don't sell well in the US because there is only one company bring a diesel car to the US: VW. IF you look at the numbers you will discover that VW NEVER advertises their diesel engine, yet they manage to sell everyone they can legally bring to the US (due to average emissions they need to sell ~3 gas cars for each diesel - they can't improve emissions on the junk that passes for diesel in the US). Not only that, the dealers almost never take less than MSRP, and sometimes they charge more. The resale is excellent too (with 100k miles you are still looking at only a few thousand off MSRP of when it was new!)
It is quite clear that Americans will buy more diesels cars than they are allowed to. Now maybe it is only a tiny amount more, maybe it is a lot. There is no evidence either way.
I live in Olympia, and me and my prius driving roomate have "run out" of battery power. (actually, it just stopps pulling from the battery at a certain charge levl.. i think it's like 20% or something.)His is 1st gen though. Under normal driving conditions.. Never.. It usually happens when we are going up to the mountains for a hike ( the crazy effer drives it on some pretty harsh roads like the Mowich lake entrance, and the Mt. Elanor climb...) and allways we are suckin wind at the top, and fully charged 1/2 way down where we have to use real brakes 8'(
(Actually my geo died a month ago, so former owner)
More than once I took my Geo on a trip where the headwind was strong enough that I could not reach 70 mph. I still go 40 mpg on that trip, even though I held the pedal to the metal for over an hour. I do not see how an able person can get less than that in a Geo. (Obviously the disabled could, because the disabled need an automatic)
He's psychic!
Having read the patent through (and boy is it a chore getting those images of the USPTO server) I am fairly confident that my brother and I built something that did exactly this in about 1978. The problem that we had as this; we had a couple of electric motors in our Lego box that tended to run at different speeds and we didn't have any speed controllers, just on/off switches. We wanted more power for a model car than we could get from one motor so we hooked them together through a differential. Since you could switch the motors on and off independently you could run the output at different speeds. So we had a drive system with two inputs, at least one of which was an electric motor, which could run at varying speeds and which mechanically is identical to what they describe in their patent, more than a decade before it was filed.
I guess I should call Toyota and swear an affidavit for them! Not only is it prior art, but if an 11 year old and a 13 year old can invent it it's arguably obvious too.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Well, I DO have a Prius and after 1000 miles, I'm ready to trade it in. The car is NOT well designed inside, (I do like the keyless entry system, but most of the car sucks, and no, I don't know why I bought it). The car I traded in had a V6 and got better mileage on the open road and was certainily much more fun to drive. I average around 43 mpg in this 2006 Prius.
Where the hell do you get that 80% number from? Pharmas spend roughly the same on advertising and R&D (this is generally true across many sectors of the economy). However, only about 10% of that advertising is direct-to-consumer. Half is free "sample" drugs that doctors give to the poor and eldery. Dear God, what a sin that is. The remainder is education for doctors.
In any case, information is valuble. Advertising is not waste.
You are lumping administration in with marketing. Admin is 25%, R&D 10%, marketing 6%.
Again, nothing unusual there.
Yes, you have some good points there. Biodiesel wins hands down over ethanol for the simple fact, that you need heat to distill ethanol, but biodiesel can be pressed out of plant matter.
I also agree with parent on diesels. PSA has come out with a new line of really small super efficient diesel engines that have a displacement of only 1.3 liters.
The reason I think diesels flopped in the States, was not only the aforementioned Oldsmobile diesels, but also the fact that the old style diesels were not really very powerful. Tho I have actually driven a car with one of those GM diesels and it wasn't bad on power, I mean, those old v8's didn't really have all that much power.
But everything has changed, I testdrove an Audi A4 with a 1.9l TDI engine, and it was way powerful! Just gobs of torque, though it wouldn't really rev. I think most americans would prefer power like that, where you don't really need to massage the pedal to make the thing go.
American diesel has alot of sulphur in it, this makes it unsuitable for new urea filters that clean out the nox and the particulates. However, northern European diesel usually comes from Russia, where there is also a high sulfur content. There is a refinery in Finland that turns it into zero sulphur diesel.
I wonder if US refineries are so old and decrepit and have too much work on their hands already, just meeting supply, that building a refinery to take the sulphur out of diesel can't be done.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Ah, well - I would probably put the blame on myself. My memory is horrible and the chemistry conversation was a bit beyond me, anyway. I trust she stated it as you have indicated and I warped it when I paraphrased it!
Obviously, since Patents now impede progress and innovation on this planet more than they help progress and innovation succeed, we must do away with Patents. Perhaps we should replace the failed Patent concept with something similar to a Public License or Creative Commons License. /anti-patent //has name on a patent
I can usually tell with one sip whether it's a real drink or one with synthetic 'sweetener'. To me, saccharin did not taste sweet at all and aspartame just tastes wrong, but not as nasty as the saccharin. When I was a kid my taste buds where sharper and I could taste not just the presence of preservatives, but also which ones. Kinda took the fun out of many cereals, carbonated beverages and even a few candies.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.