alt Hacker NewsWhat makes you say they've been a non-issue?
As far as I'm aware they've been an issue (outside of China) for the last 20 years.
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cyberax • yesterday at 3:39 AM
The total lithium battery patent licensing market is estimated at less than 600 million USD a year. This is approximately nothing, given that the overall battery market is estimated at about $200B.
The pace of innovation is furious, and companies are treating patents more as a way to ensure MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) rather than as a tool to get income.
I think we'll start seeing the first large lawsuits once the losers start realizing that they lost the innovation race.
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Sorry we handicapped ourselves and are now complaining about a competitor? Seems silly. The west made this tech unusable. I was building ebikes in 2006/7 and A123 was entirely unavailable unless you went and salvaged power tool packs.
They never became available at a competitive price, and then China bought the rights....
Now I can buy them in bulk as a consumer for 1/15th the price.
Our system is not meant for innovation by small players or consumers. We want tech easily locked away behind a contract.