[O. horridus]

You know how this works, right? A company has engineers. A company has IP lawyers. Whenever the engineers come up with an idea, no matter how small, the lawyers go to work seeing if it can be patented, whether or not the company intends to use that idea. This then becomes intellectual property of the company, and can be licensed, sold, given away or just ignored. Or even put into use. There are entire companies that make all their money buying/selling/licensing patents and suing infringers. Regardless, with a patent it becomes an asset, without a patent it is just an idea.

In summary, a patent application filed by Rivian doesn't imply that this is a feature they are planning for a future vehicle - it doesn't represent anything except that Rivian is making a good business decision to protect any and all intellectual property developed in house. That makes the company more valuable.

 

[Mattedfred]

And, that they’re OK paying employee(s) to come up with such ideas. Seriously?

 

[sciencegeek]

And, that they’re OK paying employee(s) to come up with such ideas. Seriously?

You just don't know ahead of time what might stick. So you let a few flowers bloom; the cost is probably not that high, and if capable employees enjoy this sort of thing it may actually boost productivity because they're happier with their job situation ...

 

[RITVT]

A little odd, since you can just plug a hair dryer into a Rivian outlet LOL... 🔌

 

[MilesK]

You know how this works, right? A company has engineers. A company has IP lawyers. Whenever the engineers come up with an idea, no matter how small, the lawyers go to work seeing if it can be patented, whether or not the company intends to use that idea. This then becomes intellectual property of the company, and can be licensed, sold, given away or just ignored. Or even put into use. There are entire companies that make all their money buying/selling/licensing patents and suing infringers. Regardless, with a patent it becomes an asset, without a patent it is just an idea.

In summary, a patent application filed by Rivian doesn't imply that this is a feature they are planning for a future vehicle - it doesn't represent anything except that Rivian is making a good business decision to protect any and all intellectual property developed in house. That makes the company more valuable.

That's true that it doesn't mean that is going to be coming in a future vehicle. But it still is pretty interesting to see what a company's thought process is through the kinds of stuff they patent or trademark.

 

[NY_Rob]

Just make the cars!!!

Drag the geeks from their workstations and stand them next to some metal with a torque wrench..

Let them come up with new inventions in the shower like the rest of us do.

 

[eHauler]

You'd think with van life taking off so much and the growing number of companies involved that Rivian would leave it up to them. I guess not. Camp kitchen is cool but stuff like this could be done by someone else.