Toyota will release its hydrogen fuel cell patents

Toyota announced yesterday at the CES trade show in Las Vegas that it will make royalty-free 5,680 patents it holds for fuel cell technology. With this strategy, similar to the one it announced last June, the Japanese manufacturer seeks to share the fruits of its research with the rest of the automotive industry and thus accelerate the development of this technology.

The series of patents that Toyota will make available to other companies consists of 1,970 relating to the hydrogen fuel cell, 3,350 to the software that manages the fuel cell system, 290 to hydrogen storage tanks and 70 to the production and supply of the latter.

The patents that can be used to work on vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel cells will remain royalty-free until 2020, while those concerning the production and supply of hydrogen will be royalty-free indefinitely. The news was made official in the same year that Toyota plans to launch the Mirai, its first hydrogen vehicle aimed at the general public.

Two of the biggest hurdles facing this type of car are their high development costs and the lack of adequate refuelling infrastructure. By releasing the patents, it is foreseeable that more companies will contribute to driving research in this field, to expanding the network of “hydrogen stations” and to lowering the cost of the technology these vehicles use.

This vision, on which Toyota USA’s vice president of operations, Bob Carter, elaborated in his speech yesterday at the CES, will become key over the next five years. The joint effort of car manufacturers and other companies supporting this mobility must define during this period the path leading to a future in which hydrogen fuel cells are realistically integrated into public and private transport.

Source | Toyota