Asia IP

Not long after its entrance into the Chinese market, the electronic vehicle manufacturer Tesla recently announced that the company will open up its patent portfolio for anyone to use in good faith.

“Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters,” Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk wrote in a blog post on the company’s website. “That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.”

According to the report by Wall Street Journals, Musk is frustrated that fewer than 1% of vehicles sold run on batteries only, so he’s offering open access to his company’s patents in hopes rival car makers will follow his lead.

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, Musk said. “If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”

According to Musk, the company’s competition is the large number of gasoline cars being produced every day. Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis, he said.

Founded in 2003, Tesla is an American company that designs, manufactures, and sells electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components. Its 2010 Tesla Roadster is the first ever mass produced electric sports car that attracted widespread attention.