Certainly, the car manufacturers have the edge on the hardware, but a small tug of war is brewing when it comes to the intellectual property that will ultimately make connected and self-driving cars a reality on the road.
Companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple are pouring enormous resources into a vision of mobility that focuses on the driver experience – so much so that they have the potential to take away some of the limelight – and profits – from the automakers many presumed would dominate car connectivity and driverless technology.
Patenting and R&D strategy of incumbents vs. new players
Carmakers focus on producing hardware for mobility services, while techs focus on software
Source: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Oliver Wyman
This article first appeared in Forbes.
