Does the patent law apply to vehicle manufacturers?

What legal protections do car designers and manufacturers have to prevent their designs and innovations from being copied by rivals? CB

In terms of motor car design and technology, there is very little that manufacturers can do to prevent others from being “alerted” and “inspired” by their designs and innovations, and making their version of the general concept. 

And there is an avalanche of that going on all the time, with forms of industrial espionage keen to start it and armies of highly specialised lawyers (on both sides) only too happy to be paid to go into battle.

What they rely on is the law of patent (how to make it and how to dodge it) which does try to protect “intellectual property” (and things like copyright), but you cannot patent a concept, or an idea, anything natural, or anything already obvious “to those skilled in the art”, nor anything that is not both new and useful.

And if your own technicians can reverse engineer, improve, or otherwise alter a patented product to some degree, the original patent might not apply to their version. Further, even watertight patents expire (usually after 20 years), and may not be globally consistent or recognised in the interim.

More than a few of the latest innovations were invented – and patented – more than 20 years ago. Many are “additions” not specific to motor manufacture that have simply started being put into cars (not least nowadays, batteries and electric motors) which the economic and engineering and marketing might of the motoring industry will help accelerate.

By all means, Google all the wrinkles on patent, find a course on how to knit fog and herd cats, and take a one-year sabbatical to read it. “Specialist” lawyers must just love it!

Patent Law won’t even look at anything that is not new, useful and non-obvious. Once those hurdles are cleared, the “thing” must be precisely specified in every detail.

For example, you cannot patent the airbag as a car safety device. The idea of air in a bag having a cushioning effect is not new. But you can design and make a specific airbag system for a car, and patent the key elements of it.

The size, the shape and the material of the bag, its exact location, how it is inflated and deflated, the pressure achieved, the time taken, and the crash sensor system that triggers it all.

The holder of the patent might “licence” independent manufacturer(s) for a fee or charge a “royalty” to anyone making or using that precise design. 

Rivals can try to “avoid” the patent by substantially improving the original product, or by changing the material or inflation process or sensor system “enough” to not only disqualify the original patent but also patent their version for themselves.

Meanwhile, motor manufacturers have a constant dilemma to balance. On the one hand, as design, technical, engineering and materials advances get nearer and nearer a “point” of currently possible perfection (after more than 100 years of guesswork, trial and error etc.), brands will inevitably look and be more and more alike in almost every respect. On the other hand, each brand needs to have a distinctive identity. 

The first casualty, already happening, is a loss of “personality”.  Bear in mind, too, that some of the biggest manufacturers each own several brands.

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