[jonnyw360f1]

Geoff Willis mentioned it in P2 and it reminded me of a thread I wanted to set-up the other day.

One can only claim a patent on a product is if you sell it, and therefore the majority of components on an F1 car cannot be patented. However, if one team were to sell the design of components to another, say Red Bull to Toro Rosso, then would it be possible and legal for Red Bull to then patent those components? (However, Toro Rosso would also be using them…)

[Prisoner Monkeys]

Probably not. Patenting parts and selling them to other teams would most likely be considered illegal under the ban on customer chassis.

[moshbeard]

I’ve heard before there is an agreement not to patent technology but I don’t have a source to back that up.

Teams wouldn’t want to patent technology anyway, it would give away their secrets and even if other teams couldn’t directly copy they’d find a way to use the same idea without infringing the patent.

[Author]

Posts