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Ford has some attention-grabbing concepts on what self-driving vehicles would possibly quickly have the ability to do. Besides releasing us from the tedium of commuting, the corporate envisions vehicles that would repossess themselves.
According to a doc not too long ago revealed on the United States Patent and Trademark Office web site, Ford mentioned it’s contemplating a system that will permit a automobile to, by itself, depart you when you cease making your month-to-month auto funds.
Don’t fear, although. The patent hasn’t been permitted but. And Ford insists it’s only a thought.
“We don’t have any plans to deploy this,” Ford mentioned in an announcement, declaring that the corporate was granted — not simply utilized for, however truly granted — 1,342 patents final 12 months. That’s a mean of three.7 patents per day.
Companies apply for patents to guard concepts from being utilized by others, whether or not or not they really use the mental property themselves, defined patent lawyer Michael Messinger, a accomplice within the Washington, DC, workplace of the agency Vorys. These processes can take a very long time, mentioned Messinger, with numerous back-and-forth.
But perhaps some components of Ford’s 14-page software, full of concepts for getting folks to pay up, could also be extra patentable than others.
Before attending to the purpose the place the automobile would merely drive itself away, delinquent payers can be topic to a litany of annoyances. First, badgering messages on house owners’ smartphones and even on the screens contained in the automobile. These messages would demand a minimum of an acknowledgment or, higher but, on-the-spot cost.
If the proprietor persists in ignoring these messages, the automobile would, within the phrases of Ford’s patent software, “initiate execution of a multi-step repossession procedure.”
Step one includes making the proprietor pay in different methods. Features just like the air con, cruise management, or the radio would possibly cease working. (Some of that’s already doable in lots of automobiles.)
If that doesn’t work, the automobile might turn into proactively irritating. The stereo is perhaps programmed to “emit an incessant and unpleasant sound every time the owner is present in the vehicle,” in response to the patent.
There can be only one approach to flip off the noise, which might after all contain “….making contact with the lending institution to address the payment delinquency.”
Failing that, the automobile would make itself unusable by, for starters, refusing to unlock its doorways. This is the place issues get actually difficult.
A borrower would possibly must drive to work as a way to earn the cash to pay again the mortgage. The automobile might be restricted to permit itself solely to be taken to work and, perhaps, to purchase groceries or drop the youngsters off at college. That’s it. And all of the whereas, the motive force can be unable to hearken to the stereo, may not have air con and might be subjected to that irritating, unstoppable noise.
Then there may be the problem of what to do if there’s a medical emergency. In a state of affairs like this, in response to Ford’s software, the automobile might be enabled to drive itself to the closest emergency room and even to coordinate with emergency medical personnel to rendezvous at a location. The automobile would then return to locking out its proprietor.
Only in essentially the most excessive non-payment situation would the automobile obtain an over-the-air command to stop its proprietor. In that case, if the automobile isn’t able to totally self-driving in site visitors, it’d simply transfer itself to a spot the place it could be simple for a tow truck to retrieve it, like the sting of a road.
Sometimes, although, debtors who’re behind on funds will take the step of locking their automobile in a storage or inserting it someplace that makes it unattainable to easily drive itself away. In the top, an excellent old school human being taking again the automobile often is the solely reply.
So, whereas Ford’s thought for a self-repossessing automobile would possibly by no means be granted an precise patent, a number of the concepts included within the patent — a automobile that makes horrible noises when you don’t pay, as an example, or that permits you to drive to just one or two locations — these simply is perhaps patentable, mentioned Messinger.
It could not have been your thought of the “car of the future” however, when you don’t pay up, it simply is perhaps.
Source: www.cnn.com