Volvo: Give away the patent, grow the standard.
Volvo patented the three-point seatbelt and then let every car maker use it. Explore when sharing your best idea creates more value than keeping it, and what you keep for yourself.
See the idea in one picture ↓- three-point belt launched
- 1959
- patent shared with all car makers
- Open
- lives saved, Volvo estimate
- 1M+
Figures as reported by the company.
Independent educational analysis. Scenarios, people, numbers and illustrations on this page are original PMcademy practice material, not company research results or an endorsement.
Think about the people who will never buy from you.
“I will never buy your car. I still want what keeps me alive.”
- Protection, whatever she drives
- A standard she can trust
- An idea locked to one brand
- Cost passed on to her
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Our fictional learner, Ingrid, drives a different brand of car. She will never be your customer, and she will still be safer if her car has your invention. Your own customers also share the road with her. Ask who benefits from your idea beyond your customers, and whether your product gets better when theirs does too.
Your best idea could be your edge, or everyone’s floor.
A life-saving idea in one brand’s cars
The same idea in every car on the road
Read the analysis
Imagine your team invents something that clearly protects people. Keeping it to yourself could make your product stand out for years. Sharing it could make it normal everywhere, faster than you could ever sell it. The product question is not only how to protect an advantage. It is whether the value of the idea grows when everyone uses it, and what you will compete on instead.
When sharing an idea is worth more than owning it
- 1Exclusive
Kept to yourself, the idea protects only the people who buy from you.
- 2Open to all
With the patent shared, every car maker can fit it, so it spreads fast.
- 3The new standard
The design becomes normal everywhere, and you compete on what you still own.
Animated illustration. Names, numbers and people are fictional teaching material.
Adoption is the value.
Illustrative data and simplified behaviour. This model does not represent a live company system or measured company results.
Read the analysis
Use the model below to compare three paths. Keep the invention exclusive, license it for a fee, or open it to everyone. Watch how many cars on the road carry it after a few years. Some ideas are worth more the more widely they are used: safety features, file formats, connectors and protocols. The numbers in the model are illustrative.
Big estimates need their method beside them.
Volvo says it made the patent available to all car makers and estimates more than a million lives saved.
Separate the effect of sharing the patent from later seatbelt laws.
- Adoption across the market
- Share of users protected
- What you still lead on afterwards
Read the analysis
Volvo estimates that more than a million lives have been saved, based on its own and general statistics, and notes that no globally coordinated statistics exist. That is Volvo’s own estimate, and it cannot separate the effect of opening the patent from laws that later required belts. In your project, decide what adoption you can actually measure and what you will attribute to your decision.
You give up exclusivity and gain a reputation.
- Faster adoption everywhere
- The standard follows your design
- Lasting reputation
- No licence revenue
- Rivals ship it too
- A differentiator becomes the norm
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Opening a patent means rivals ship your idea without paying you, and a feature that could have set you apart becomes standard. In return, the problem it solves shrinks for everyone, the standard follows your design, and your name becomes linked to the idea. Decide what you will still own after you share: the brand, the next invention, or the know-how behind it.
Share it, sell it or keep it?
Your fictional team has built an accessibility feature that makes your app usable for people with low vision, and other apps could adopt it easily. You can keep it as a selling point, offer it to other companies as a paid toolkit, or publish it openly as a standard. Choose a path and explain what you will compete on afterwards.
Choose a next move
Leave with an open or closed decision.
Your artifact
Write an open or closed decision for one capability: who benefits in each case, your choice, what you still own, and the adoption you will measure.
Critique my project artifact using only the evidence I provide. Write an open or closed decision for one capability: who benefits in each case, your choice, what you still own, and the adoption you will measure. Separate observed facts, assumptions, proposed tests and missing evidence. Identify a failure mode and a cheap check. Do not invent company results or user research. Ask for my artifact before starting.
Read the analysis
Pick one capability your product has. Write who benefits if only your customers have it, and who benefits if everyone does. Decide whether to keep it, license it or open it. Name what you will still own afterwards, the adoption you would measure, and the signal that would make you change your mind.