A federal judge has administratively closed a $2 billion patent infringement lawsuit hydrogen trucking startup Nikola filed against Tesla in 2018, essentially pulling it off the Northern District Court of California’s docket because the two companies stopped responding. Nikola tried to make the case that Tesla’s own Tesla Semi was using the same wraparound windshield, mid-entry doors, and aerodynamic fuselage, among other details. The startup also alleged that a Tesla recruiter had tried to poach Nikola’s chief engineer, and claimed this was evidence that Tesla was interested in Nikola’s designs. (At one point last year, Tesla tried to argue that Nikola stole the design for its own truck from Croatian hypercar company Rimac.) In April 2020, Tesla lost a bid with the US Patent and Trademark Office to invalidate some of the patents in question.

Source: The Nation October 01, 2021 18:22 UTC