Toyota Builds a Patent Thicket For Hybrid Cars

Lorien_the_first_one sends along a WSJ piece reporting on how Toyota is hoping to benefit from new Obama Administration regulations for automobiles here in the US. "Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone. Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan Motor Co. has for its Altima hybrid."

Comments

The Solution is Obvious

[xjimhb]

If the Obama bin Laden Administration wants to pass regulations on this, what they need to do is INCLUDE in those regulations a law that invalidates any patents which would prevent any manufacturer from following the regulations. If Ford or GM or whoever goes to build a hybrid car, and Toyota complains of a patent violation - WHAM! Toyota's patent(s) are instantly canceled, retracted, invalidated.

If you want everyone to build hybrids or other efficeint cars, you simply CAN NOT allow one company to have a stranglehold on the technology! The technology you want everyone to use must be FORCED into the public domain.