Published last year was the article "With Software Patents in Autonomous Cars Few Giants Want a Monopoly on Driving, Not Physical Car Components," which was partly based on my experiences developing software for applied computer vision in cars (computing for car navigation, using Google's Android as the underlying platform). Is Google now becoming the Nemesis of developers in this emergent area? Last week we said that it had become apparent that Google is a patent bully in the field, having filed a lawsuit. These are, for the most part, software patents and now that Google strives to become the standard (see this article titled "Self-driving cars might need standards, but whose?") we can't help but envision FRAND in cars too, as in some patent thicket all car makers will need to blindly accept and submit to.
Technology giant Alphabet Inc.’s Google has the biggest trove of U.S. patents related to the crucial autonomous-car technology that’s at the heart of its dispute with Uber Technologies Inc., Bloomberg Law data show.
The future is likely to bring even more patent and trade-secret disputes, as carmakers and technology companies race to deliver the first commercially viable self-driving cars to consumers.