Court in Munich rules for Ford Germany to destroy all of their cars, because of missing LTE licenses. (Probably won't happen tho)

[Senzelian]

Summary

 

Because of cellular licencing issues, Ford might have to stop selling and producing cars in Germany and has to destroy all cars that have been delivered to dealers within Germany. That would mean more than 100.000 destroyed cars.

 

Since 2018 the EU requires all cars that are sold within the EU to feature an "E-Call" system. To use E-Call the cars need a cellular chip, which is often also used for entertainment functions to provide 4G/LTE connectivity.

Patentholders of such chips are now suing Ford for not paying for the licences to use these chips.

 

The regional court of Munich has now ruled against Ford to destroy all of Ford's cars and to halt all sales within Germany. The ruling will take effect as soon as the japanese patent exploiter IP Bridge will pay 227 million Euro as a security deposit.

 

It is now up to Ford to find a solution in cooperation with IP Bridge before they pay the security deposit.

 

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

Aufgrund fehlender Patente hat das Landgericht München ein deutschlandweites Verkaufs- und Produktionsverbot gegen den Autohersteller Ford verhängt. Autos, die bei Händlern stehen, drohen zudem sogar die Zerstörung.

Translation: Because of missing patents the regional court of Munich has decided to halt all production and selling of Ford's cars in Germany. Cars that were delivered to dealers might be destroyed.

 

 

 

 

My thoughts

 

And I was just about to buy a Mustang - no seriously! I honestly wanted to buy a Mustang this year. I really hope Ford and IP Bridge will be able to find a solution, as this not only sucks for me, but also sucks for the environment.

We're constantly talking about how important the environment is, but destroying this many cars for literally no reason is just an absolute waste of ressources. Tho I assume, that Ford won't "destroy" the cars literally. They likely will take them apart and simply desolder the chips in question for the moment, maybe replacing them with new ones or waiting for the necessary licences to use them.

 

 

Sources

https://www.focus.de/auto/autos-droht-sogar-zerstoerung-ford-droht-verkaufsverbot-in-deutschland-wegen-fehlender-patente_id_102380163.html

(Sources unfortunately again in Germany :p)

[Fasterthannothing]

That might be the stupidest ruling ever especially at a time when there is already a massive vehicle shortage

[Senzelian]

3 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

That might be the stupidest ruling ever especially at a time when there is already a massive vehicle shortage

im politician

save enviroment by producing millions of electric cars
also destroy cars for the luls

yaaaay

 

 

[TetraSky]

ah yes, destroy the entire card, for a single chip. That makes so much sense. They couldn't possibly just... Remove the chip or pay a fine to make it go away and then pay a licence for it. Nope, gotta DESTROY the whole car, it's the only way around this.

[SignatureSigner]

did i ever say i hate the environment oh sry im a politician i'm supposed to be saving it. Whoops

-every politician ever

/s

[Master Disaster]

Honestly, sounds like the courts are trying to push Ford into paying the royalties more than anything. I'd be stunned if they actually went through with even the ban, let alone the bonfires and fireworks.

[wanderingfool2]

28 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

That might be the stupidest ruling ever especially at a time when there is already a massive vehicle shortage

It's a patent issue, it's not like they get to take into account current world situations when it comes to ruling for or against.  The decision tree is like this

Did they infringe the patent? No [nothing happens]

Yes - Financial punishment and blocking of sale of infringing product.

 

What would be interesting to know, but hard for me to check given I only know english and US/Canada patent stuff...what exactly is Ford accused of infringing.  Is it the actual physical hardware, or is it a software patent.  That question is a big one...if it's a software patent that is infringed in terms of LTE implementation they might be able to just do a firmware update and make it compliant.

 

It would also be important to know what the company was asking to license the patent (and whether it was a conglomerate patent).

 

This does remind me of why I dislike patents, in a time where if you want to utilize a technology that should be a lot more public standards, or single entity to license the tech from...instead you have multiple patents covering it and each could potentially sue...even if it's because you purchase chips that infringe the patent (without even realizing it).  [Thinking of the time that a patent troll sued businesses using a wifi router because it infringed their patent...knowing that the small businesses couldn't fight the lawsuits and avoiding suing the maker because they knew it was more profitable selling the unsuspecting victims].  Not saying this is the case here...but it's be interesting to know.

 

TL;DR; this could be a simple case of Ford knowing it's in violation and just not willing to pay, to the patent being terrible...more information needed really.

[Senzelian]

25 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

What would be interesting to know, but hard for me to check given I only know english and US/Canada patent stuff...what exactly is Ford accused of infringing.  Is it the actual physical hardware, or is it a software patent.  That question is a big one

As far as I understand its related to hardware licenses. At least according to the numerous news outlets.
This is the actual patent they are infringing on: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2294737B1/de

 

Here's more info on that:
http://www.fosspatents.com/2022/05/ip-bridge-wins-4g-patent-injunction.html

I'm honestly to lazy to read it right now, I just ate... 

 

[Needfuldoer]

The demand that all infringing vehicles be destroyed is absurd. I bet they pursued it as a strong-arm tactic.

 

They'll probably settle, with Ford paying the back licensing fees plus some "we're sorry" money.

[Levent]

Clickbait. Pretty sure they dont have to destroy those cars. Customer and dealers had no knowledge of any wrong doing, the cars under the ownership of Ford can be retrofitted with non-infringing tech and exported out of the counrty. Either way Ford is looking at a legal battle here.

[Senzelian]

3 minutes ago, Levent said:

Pretty sure they dont have to destroy those cars, its just another clickbait title.

The judge literally used the word "vernichtet", which means destroyed.
I agree that it likely won't happen, but theoratically that is what the judge ordered them to do. To take a little bit of wind out of the sails and try to not make it too clickbaity, I added the "probably won't happen tho" part in the headline  

[WereCat]

That's even worse than burning your house down because there was a spider

[Ydfhlx]

This is your average European Union. Force producers to integrate features most don't want, and which can only be produced by handful of patent holders. And then they act surprised when prices go up.

[Levent]

1 hour ago, Ydfhlx said:

This is your average European Union. Force producers to integrate features most don't want, and which can only be produced by handful of patent holders. And then they act surprised when prices go up.

If this is the feature I am familiar in BMWs, "E-Call" is a feature where car automatically calls a call center in case of an accident, there they ask the occupants if they are alright, call emergency services and also provide them location of the car. It is not exactly a feature "most dont want" just like how seat belts are not a feature "most dont want". It is there for a reason, to save lives.

 

Issue here is the patent holders, not just car manufacturers or EU.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Levent said:

Issue here is the patent holders, not just car manufacturers or EU.

More accurately the issue is the concept of patents, or at the very least their ridiculous duration, especially concerning critical infrastructure.

 

Still, demanding the cars be annihilated is pretty absurd - why not just impose a fine or a recall? And also what was ford even thinking... like they can't afford the license...

[Heliian]

Ok, this article sums it up nicely and includes some other tidbits:

 

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/ford-faces-sales-ban-in-germany-over-lte-patent-dispute-189414.html

 

The carmakers are being patent trolled in Munich.  

 

They're bundling up the "patent owners" to go after the big companies and try and squeeze them.  I hope Ford fights it.