twoseventyone report that in Germany carmakers are strong-arming their small and medium sized suppliers into surrendering their IP (including patents) in order to win contracts.
We found that a competitor was using IP we’d developed . . . When we brought this situation to the attention of the relevant OEM, and asked them to at least pay a licensing fee, they told us that we were welcome to lodge this request but that in such a case they could not guarantee that we would receive orders from them in the future.
These would presumably be the same large companies who were recently promoting software patents because they said “[software patents] would help the lone inventor and small company get a good deal.” Indeed.
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