Patently provocative

Those of you up to speed on the electric car industry will be aware of a major move made by Tesla: they are not going to enforce their patents on their electric cars. Why? Well, for a number of business reasons, and those of you aware of the arguments for enforcing intellectual property rights may be surprised by how much Tesla’s shares rose after the announcement. Morgan Stanley described Tesla as “arguably the most important car company in the world”, and as it represents such a huge Silicon Valley shake-up, one critic suggested that Tesla should bin its patents altogether. Every Economics and Management, PPE and Economics student should brush up on the business side, and then those of you interested in Engineering should be interested in the technology, and Lawyers – it’s a sticky issue for you too.