TL;DR: If you want to use Tesla’s charger patent, you’re allowing Tesla to steal your patent and you can’t sue Tesla for it, even if the patent is not related to charging technology.
Well yes, but to use it the company will have to give up a lot.
Tesla offers its patents free of charge and won’t launch a lawsuit against any company using them. This sounds great, but this only applies to companies acting in “good faith”, as defined Tesla’s Patent Pledge. This clause has significant business implications and explains why many haven’t utilized Tesla’s patents.
According to Nicholas Collura, an attorney writing for Duane Morris LLP, using Tesla’s patents forfeits a company’s right to bring action against Tesla for any form of copyright infringement—not just in relation to the patents. Essentially, if Tesla stole a company’s software code, that company would need to give up any protections offered under Tesla’s Patent Pledge to pursue legal action.
Furthermore, and even more importantly, using Tesla’s patents means that a company cannot assert its own patent right against any other electric vehicle company. This is especially risky for companies that rely on patents to gain a competitive edge.
The terms also deem that a company can’t challenge any Tesla patent, including those outside of the Patent Pledge, nor can it have any financial involvement in a company that does so. Collura notes the vagueness of this, saying that “Tesla could argue that a supplier has a financial stake in its customer’s challenge of a Tesla patent.”
As of last month, SAE is making NACS an open standard (properly open, not just in name). So if you want to make an NACS charger, you get permission from SAE, not Tesla.
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know for sure that there isn’t any patent-pledge sneakery involved here, but I would be a lot more comfortable using those designs myself if they were published by a standards body like ISO, IEC, or SAE.
TL;DR: If you want to use Tesla’s charger patent, you’re allowing Tesla to steal your patent and you can’t sue Tesla for it, even if the patent is not related to charging technology.
Well yes, but to use it the company will have to give up a lot.
From https://www.makeuseof.com/why-manufacturers-dont-use-tesla-superchargers/:
deleted by creator
As of last month, SAE is making NACS an open standard (properly open, not just in name). So if you want to make an NACS charger, you get permission from SAE, not Tesla.
https://www.sae.org/news/press-room/2023/06/sae-international-announces-standard-for-nacs-connector
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know for sure that there isn’t any patent-pledge sneakery involved here, but I would be a lot more comfortable using those designs myself if they were published by a standards body like ISO, IEC, or SAE.