埃隆•穆斯克为什么要开放专利

    请收下我们的专利吧！

    这就是发明人和汽车制造埃隆•穆斯克日前说过的话。这位特斯拉汽车（Tesla Motors）的CEO在一篇博客中表示，他的公司“将不会针对任何善意使用我们技术的任何人提起诉讼”。穆斯克表示，过去曾经用来装点特斯拉帕洛阿尔托总部一面墙壁的专利已经按照“开源运动的精神”移走，以帮助进一步提升电动汽车科技。

    【这篇博客的标题是：《我们所有的专利都属于你》（All Our Patent Are Belong To You），呼应了源于上世纪90年代视频游戏的互联网文化元素。】

    穆斯克补充说，这项声明代表了他的反思。因为这位特斯拉创始人过去曾不遗余力地获取专利，以保护自己的技术不被大型汽车厂商染指。这些竞争对手的庞大基础架构可能把特斯拉挤出市场。他现在表示，这个策略只会使电动汽车领域的“发展陷入僵化”。

    “我们不可能犯比这更严重的错误了，”穆斯克说。“不幸的现实是截然相反的：大汽车厂商的电动汽车项目（或任何不燃烧碳氢化合物汽车计划）很小，甚至都不存在，平均仅占各自汽车销售总量的不足1%。”

    这位特斯拉创始人说，他的公司生产新车的速度还不够快，不可能改变气候变化的形势。穆斯克写道：“我们认为，这个快速进化的公共科技平台能给特斯拉、其他制造电动汽车的公司以及整个世界都带来好处。

    他补充说，“意志坚定的竞争者”通常无论如何都会找到绕开专利的途径，而这使得开源成为“吸引、激励世界上最有才华工程技术人才的最佳方式”。

    声明发布之前的一周，特斯拉召开了年度股东大会。这位同时也在担任私人空间开发公司SpaceX公司 CEO的亿万富翁在这次股东大会上表示，他计划未来至少四、五年将继续担任特斯拉公司CEO。（财富中文网）

    Take our patents, please!

    That’s what inventor and automaker Elon Musk is saying today, as the Tesla Motors TSLA 0.07% CEOsaid in a blog post that his company “will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” Musk said the patents that used to line a wall in Tesla’s Palo Alto headquarters have been removed “in the spirit of the open source movement” and to help further advance electric car technology.

    (The blog post is titled “All Our Patent Are Belong To You” – a nod to an early Internet meme that originated with an early ’90′s video game.)

    Musk added that this announcement represents a reversal of thinking for him, as the Tesla founder used to go out of his way to obtain patents in order to protect his technology from his larger rivals in the auto industry, whose massive infrastructure could potentially push Tesla out of the market. He now says that strategy only serves “to stifle progress” in the field of electric vehicles.

    “We couldn’t have been more wrong,” Musk says. “The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.”

    The Tesla founder says it is impossible for his company to build new cars quickly enough to make a difference when it comes to climate change. “We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform,” Musk writes.

    He adds that a “determined competitor” can usually find a way around patents anyway, and that taking an open source position is the best way “to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers.”

    The announcement comes a week after Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, at which Musk – a billionaire who is also CEO at private space exploration company SpaceX – said he plans to stay on as Tesla’s CEO for at least another four or five years.