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Originally Posted by GTRMagic
How do you prove use of IP when it relates to internal combustion engines or electronics or metallurgy or fuel technology or pressure flow management or ceramics or any of a number of other areas of tech that exist in the world of FIA homologation, and unless these bits are cracked open, how would you ever know?
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That is a great question that could be a thread of it's own.
When we talk "Intellectual Property", I think most think about "patents", but it doesn't have to be. It could be trade secrets or other things. Some of which may not have much enforcement mechanisms.
In the technical regulations, some components fit specific categories. A big one being the "Listed Team Components" (LTC). LTC are those items that are required to be "Designed and Manufactured" by the teams themselves. It does allow for subcontractors, etc. but at the end of the day the "owner" of the "thing" is the team. In the technical regulations, they do provide their own definition for IP and while it includes "patents", it mentions other like "trade secrets" and "know how".
Going back to the Honda Power Unit (particularly the ICE part). Conceptually Honda could sell or give "IP" for the engine. This might be as simple as CAD drawings, or more detailed information such as heat treatment procedures for manufacturing various parts, creation of unique coating, etc. Basically everything needed to recreate a working copy. Outside of some manufacturing related items that would have value outside of F1 (such as proprietary coating and maybe some other concepts usable for road cars), most likely none of that is patented.
ERS items that probably have usage outside of F1 (such as battery technology) probably is patented and would be protected by the patent owner. Items like batteries are significant enough (not easy to manufacture) that a teams battery partner is unlikely to build components for a team knowing they are violating patents.
Why is more not patented? I assume because the the primary desire is to keep it secret vs. prevent usage elsewhere. You might patent a great idea, it then becomes public and this might give enough info to a competitor to create a similar solution that is not in conflict with your patent. Patents probably take awhile to be granted, so it may not offer the protection that is initially needed. And if you come up with a really great solution and then patent it, you could have competitors cry foul that performance may hinge upon your proprietary solution of which only you can use. So they may push to ban the technology for the sake of "competition".
The Appendix 5 list of components and their classifications seems to focus on physical hardware, but as best as I can tell doesn't speak to software. Software has to be versioned, capable of being monitored and is homologated. But I don't see it mentioned as "IP". But lets say someone was to steal the ECU code from a competitor and then get caught. I am sure that would be an issue.
I think that at the end of the day, its
probably up to a competitor to press the point that they think someone else has obtained IP in an unapproved way. The best example is 2007 Spygate and the recent 2020 Racing Point design. I believe entire engines are homologated (same for software), so the FIA should have "examples" of things like PowerUnits to tear down if needed. I can't imagine there is any proactive "checking" going on by the FIA.
Richard