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Tesla, Rivian in court over trade secrets

Mjhirsch78

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Welcome to the big leagues Rivian. You have your first lawsuit! Kind of hard to argue with no product to use as evidence out in the world to compare, don’t ya think?
 

ajdelange

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Unfortunately tech companies now compete as much with their legal teams as with their engineering teams. The problem for us as consumers is that the costs incurred in paying lawyers gets passed on to the buyer.

It's mostly sabre rattling. Tesla isn't going to recover any "damages" from Rivian. After lots of fuss RJ and Elon will sign some sort of agreement agreeing not to poach each others employees.
 
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electruck

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No product required - it will all boil down to documentation. While Tesla may or may not have a legitimate concern, I suspect this is equally about firing a warning shot at other EV companies as well as former/current employees who may go to work for other EV companies in the future.
 

LeoH

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This can also be a scare tactic, to deter any future plans to do something like that. The legal cost to Tesla is nothing compared to have their intellectual property leaking out.

With all that being said, the EV space right now is tight, its the new thing and employees who are smart and experiences will always offer their services to the higher bidder. We have to wait and see what is the exact intellectual property they are talking about, but I can only imagine it's another waste of time as I have yet to see any similarity between the product from a technological aspect.
 

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bajadahl

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I was going to say - "What does Tesla know about Rivian's product and can they share it with us?" lol
 

jacobh

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Oddly, Elon welcomed competition and even has "open patents" on a lot of Tesla's tech so that other car companies have no excuse not to go electric...
the mission of "sustainable energy" always came first.
With former employees helping to start another EV company (in any form) doesn't that only accelerate Tesla's mission?
 

thrill

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...After lots of fuss RJ and Elon will sign some sort of agreement agreeing not to poach each others employees.
The DOJ and FTC state that any agreement limiting hiring between employers that are competing for the same employees is a per se antitrust violation that may result in civil or criminal liability
 

ajdelange

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Funny. I worked for a couple of companies that had those - at the government's request, or perhaps I should say suggestion.
 

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scottf200

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Highlights:

On July 7, 2020, after her conversation With Duran and the same day that Wong received an update on her background check by Rivian, she sent at least sixteen highly confidential and trade secret recruiting documents from Tesla’s network to her Gmail account, including various guides and templates developed by Tesla—the very types of documents that Duran had instructed her that Rivian needed.
These documents consisted of highly sensitive trade secret, confidential, and proprietary engineering information about manufacturing project management, controls specifications for manufacturing equipment, specifications regarding manufacturing robotics, and manufacturing equipment requirements. These documents would be used rarely, if at all, by Siron as manager of Environmental Health and Safety, yet she exported them shortly after accepting her offer at Rivian.
 

UT Rivian

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Musk is putting out a little lawsuit propaganda. He gets a lot of free publicity because he’s such an easy/interesting quote. At the end of the day, I prefer RJ’s approach.

“They’re doing bad things”
 
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SpinDoc7

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“Lawyers representing Rivian argued that Tesla didn’t file the case to defend or protect legitimate intellectual property rights, but instead used in “improper and malicious attempt to slow” the company’s momentum and attempt to damage its brand. The filing also claimed that Tesla used the lawsuit to scare its own employees from leaving the company.” - Whoot whoot!
 

Jehorton

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I view Elon in a slightly different light now.
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