USPTO refuses Tesla Robotaxi trademark as "merely descriptive"

Tesla is also the leader in terms of crashes, injuries, and fatalities. On a per-mile basis, they're the most dangerous advanced driving system in the world and it's not even close.

Tesla has been working on improving a level 2 system that works everywhere while Waynlmo has been working on expanding the capabilities and coverage of their level 4 system that works in limited areas and requires detailed mapping.

Tesla has yet to get good enough to achieve level 4 so they can't actually run a robotaxi yet. Tesla's bet is that if they can reach level 4 with their approach, they'll be able to roll out robotaxis much more widely than Waymo can.

So far, the bet has not paid off and Tesla needs it to pay off before Waymo's slower rollout gets too far ahead.

There's a word in GP's post that you elided. "Full" means a human doesn't need to be supervising, and it works outside of the heavily mapped and stable conditions of LA.

You left out the key word in that phrase, “full”. Tesla cars have autonomous driving features that require a human in the driver seat to take over in case the autonomous features shut off. That’s not “full self driving”.

Let me know when "FSD" can navigate this intersection in my state capital:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q3VPJvJ6WwXe3gdZ7

Four lanes, left to right: straight+left, right turn only, concrete divider, right turn only, right turn only. Note that there are only two lanes when you turn right, so you can turn into the rightmost lane from lane 2, the leftmost lane from lane 3, rightmost from lane 4.

Traffic lights (four signals) on the far end of the intersection work thus:

1. Left two lane lights turn green (Right two lanes are red). You can have traffic going straight, left or right. Traffic in lane 2 can turn right, but lanes 3 and 4 cannot. 2. Right two lane lights turn green, left red. Lane 2 cannot turn right but lanes 3 and 4 can.

All the lights are circles, no arrows. The only indication of weirdness is that there's a "No turn on red".

I do not see FSD behaving appropriately.

SpaceX is not vaporware, but that's more because of Gwynne Shotwell than Musk.

So the astronauts were brought back from the ISS by vaporware?

Wow, I didn't know that Starlink was vaporware.

There are advertised features of Teslas that are vaporware, but it’s a stretch to call them vaporware. xAI is also very real. Others have mentioned SpaceX. He bought Twitter/X but that’s not vaporware either. Neuralink is also real. The Boring Company has only dug 2 short tunnels so far, so the case can be made for calling that vaporware.

I need to stop paying for things with PayPal if it's just vaporware.

First to file really doesn't change anything relevant here. It just makes it so that if two or more independent inventors invented the same thing and both are applying for a patent the patent goes to whoever filed first instead of trying to figure out who invented it first.

Trying to figure out who invented first could be hard because your priority date was not necessarily when you actually thought of the invention. It was the latest date where you started working diligently to reduce your invention to practice and continued so working until you succeeded.

So if you came up with the idea and started right away working diligently on it and keep doing so until you succeeded then your priority date would be when you came up with the idea.

But if you took breaks you might lose that priority date, and your new priority date would be when you resumed work.

So then we have to decide when a break will reset your priority date. Is it just the length? Does the reason for the break matter?

And what counts as working diligently? Does it need to be full time or is it OK if you are working on your invention every evening after your job?

It was quite messy.

That's one way it could go. Another is that no new patents are granted. No lawsuits. Full Shenzhen.