The Grand Prix season is the time when the world’s leading Formula 1 teams show off their latest challengers, which typically include a host of highly innovative design features and technologies affecting everything from aerodynamics to gearbox design and suspension or braking systems.

Ahead of the Australian Grand Prix on 16^th March, Silverstone-based Force India has recently visited Barcelona to test the new VJM01 car, which boasts a series of optimised mechanical and aerodynamic technologies.

According to Dave Croston, patent attorney at Withers & Rogers LLP, F1 teams like Force India could be doing a lot more to protect their innovations. He explains:

“Formula 1 teams spend a huge proportion of their turnover on research and development and their engineers work hard to come up with lots of great ideas but they’re failing to cash in, because they’re not protecting their designs and technologies properly.

“McLaren has only filed two international patents in the last fifteen years and Williams hasn’t filed any. This is shocking when you consider that the technology on an average family car is covered by hundreds, if not thousands of patents. It is even more shocking when you consider that much of the technology developed in Formula 1 ends up in normal passenger cars - especially technologies developed in areas like engine efficiency and performance; brake design and performance and fuel and oil improvements.

“Once such innovations are made public it is too late to obtain patent protection and competitors are free to copy without restriction. This lack of patent protection is fuelling espionage in the sport and the only right of recourse that teams currently have is to take their complaint to the racing authorities.”

According to Withers & Rogers, one of the reasons that Formula 1 teams are so bad at protecting their innovations is that they tend to focus all their funding efforts on attracting and keeping sponsors and far less on marketing their inventions. However, growing concern about allegations of espionage, along with Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA) insistence that F1 teams develop technologies that are applicable in production cars, could bring changes.

Among the recent allegations of espionage, McLaren was fined £50m for spying on rival Ferrari last year and a number of well known names have since spoken out to highlight the problem of spying.

Dave Croston comments:

“It’s a shame that in the drive for success on the track, Formula 1 teams are giving away technology which could find its way onto a production car and generate substantial sums of money.

“Espionage is rife in Formula 1 racing and this is likely to continue as long as patent protection is ignored. By obtaining patents, teams can effectively ring-fence their innovations with legal protection that lasts for 20 years.”

ENDS

For more information contact:

Richard Ayres, Marketing and Business Development Manager at Withers & Rogers LLP Tel: 01926 310700 or Message Him via "Who we are" section, or

Christine Smart, Joanna Buckle or Beth Zaltzman at SMARTS on 0121 456 3199 or christine.smart@iassmarts.com.