About those "free" Electic Vehicle patents:

[A_Harman]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-dri...rticle24669806/

 

[stephen9666]

Hmmmm....

It seems the entire premise of that piece is built on an inaccurate claim.

Ford isn't giving away their patents, they're opening them up for licensing for a fee.
https://fortune.com/2015/05/28/ford-electric-vehicle-patent-announcement/
Quote:
However, while the automaker (Ford) is offering competitors access to patents, it is not giving them away for free. To date, Tesla Motors is the only automaker that has shared all of its patents for free.


Licensing technology isn't anything new.

 

[Eddie]

Any patent that is obtained by our national lab or college research facilities must be free, since they used tax dollars to pay for equipment and or salaries. I know because I worked for Argonne National Laboratories for 23 years. I did work in the area of advanced batteries for several years and our group held many patients on Li batteries and specialized battery chargers which Ford, GM and others gladly jumped on. Ed

 

[Garak]

They need to understand that open source licensing doesn't only apply to software. As an aside, the biggest fear of an actual plug in electrical vehicle in Canada is having too short range and very little heat in the dead of winter. It's bad enough to be stranded when a starter battery is cantankerous when it's -40. The last thing I need is a whole bank of batteries being cantankerous at -40, or leaving me with a five mile range and a cabin temperature of -39.