MIT Profs Say Ford Stole Their Engine Patents

A trio of engineering professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim that Ford Motor Co. stole their engine technology and is using it illegally in several top-selling models, Bloomberg News reports.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified royalties on the sale of such vehicles as the F-Series pickup truck, Lincoln Navigator large SUV and Ford Mustang sport coupe. Bloomberg notes that that dispute strains a technology collaboration between Ford and MIT that began to 2007.

At issue is a dual port, direct-injection fuel system developed by MIT Profs. Leslie Bromberg, Daniel Cohn and John Heywood. They transferred ownership of their technology to MIT, which agreed to grant exclusive patent rights to the system through a company, Ethanol Boosting Systems LLC, set up by the three researchers.

According to their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., the professors offered Ford first rights to license the technology in 2014 but were rebuffed after months of discussion.

The plaintiffs assert that Ford told them it had no plan to use such technology. But they say the company in fact introduced just such a system in mid-2017 in its family of Eco-Boost engines.