High Fliying?! - what if car drivers could soon feel like pilots? This idea is being mooted by the European car manufacturer Stellantis. The company has filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office relating to use of the steering wheel - which in this case is no longer a wheel - to accelerate and brake. As in an aeroplane: the new actuator would be pushed forwards or pulled backwards. Steering would still be done with learned more traditional turning movement.
Jochen Kilchert, patent attorney and partner, explains the subtleties of the Stellantis case: “The patent application does not refer to a steering wheel, but to a ‘motion control system for a vehicle’. This does not specify the shape, but only the dual function of steering and accelerating or braking. With such a patent, the competition could be specifically restricted in its innovations and imitation of the technology could be fundamentally prevented.”
An initial assessment by the US Patent Office indicates, however, that Stellantis will probably not succeed with its patent application. The reason given is that the state of the art does not allow for the broad basic protection that Stellantis hopes to obtain. On the basis of the technical knowledge already available at the time of filing the patent application, the development as formulated and claimed by Stellantis is not new or not sufficiently inventive to be protected.
In this respect, Stellantis will probably have to limit the patent application considerably in order to obtain the US patent for its “motion control system”. What remains may be patent protection that could limit some competitors’ plans and products. If the competitors cannot technically avoid the scope of the potential patent but wish to use the invention, they will have to take a licence or attack the patent by making reference to further prior art to possibly limit the patent’s scope until it no longer interferes with their business.
If you are interested in this topic and have questions about patent protection in the automotive industry or other sectors, please contact us at any time.
