Adafruit: From Ultimate Driving Machine to Ultimate Rent-Seeking Machine: The BMW Logo Screw Patent.

If you haven’t already heard, BMW’s R&D teams have been busy “innovating.” Unfortunately, they aren’t focusing on the things that actually matter—like stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 22 points 8 months ago

Sega tried this back in the 90s and already lost in court. The court ruled that by making the use of it's trademark a required element in order to perform an otherwise lawful activity, any resulting trademark confusion was the fault of Sega.

  • source
  • parent