Telematics - exploiting its potential

Telematics will certainly be a growth area and become a technical must-have in the automotive arena. The development of a telematics product offering inevitably requires a host of partnerships and collaborations between network equipment suppliers, software providers, mobile network and portal operators. It is this interplay between operatives at various levels in the development and supply chain and the growing impetus to develop cost effective full service telematics systems, that underpin the need for all participants to keep within their sights and under regular review, the treatment of pre-existing intellectual property rights, as well as those generated in the future. Bearing in mind that it is those companies which own or obtain access rights to such intellectual property that will be able to exploit the potential of the telematics market, this subject is worthy of detailed consideration, and at the very least, some basic guidelines which should be followed which is discussed in this paper.