An entry into the glitzy, billion-dollar world of
Participation in F1 helps car manufacturers design racing features that can cross over into commercial vehicles and reach everyday drivers, intellectual property attorneys said. Paddle shifters, active suspensions, and even steering wheel buttons are some of the litany of car components that originated on the race track and are now ubiquitous on surface roads.
“Buttons on your steering wheel? That came straight out of F1 and other types of racing,” said Lee Osman, a Dorsey & Whitney LLP partner. “F1 teams will shoot for the moon in taking advantage of what they’re allowed to do,” Osman said, adding that GM’s bid would give it an opportunity to “leapfrog their normal R&D processes by having a special team dedicated to getting into Formula 1.”
The American auto giant’s decades-long participation in other motorsport series like NASCAR, Le Mans, and IndyCar has already spurred inventions that trickled down to consumer road cars, including the engine of the $112,000 Chevorlet Corvette Z06. GM owns more than 28,000 active patents and applications worldwide, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of patent registrations. Other technology cultivated in racing, like the 3D printing of car parts, has already been used in commercial vehicles, according to interviews with GM executives.
GM’s racing teams often share developments with other crews internally, including those that work on fuel and combustion systems, to implement motorsport breakthroughs into their production pipeline, according to Russell O’Blenes, the automaker’s director of racing propulsion. Michael Albano, executive director of communications at Cadillac, said the company will often rotate engineers from commercial production onto racing teams to experience the demands of competition.
“We’ll take engineers who are working on production Chevrolets and Cadillacs today, and we intentionally rotate them into racing programs,” Albano said. “They’ll work on racing programs for a year, a couple years, so they learn how to problem solve faster, work under that intense pressure.”
GM, under its Cadillac brand, partnered with IndyCar and Formula E team Andretti Global last year to submit a bid to join the premier international racing series in 2025 or 2026. Though they faced a setback when Formula 1 rejected the bid in January, GM is still slated to join the sport as an engine supplier in 2028, and the sport’s governing body said it would look differently at a team application for that season with GM building and supplying the engine.
Racing gives GM a leg up on other original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, too, Albano said.
“No matter how big or small that pipeline is, it gives us an advantage over those OEMs that don’t race,” he said.
Patent Portfolios
GM’s global patent portfolio already outpaces the four current Formula 1 teams that manufacture road cars available in the US, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of unexpired patents and patent applications assigned to each company.
Mercedes has nearly 12,000 active granted or pending patents, according to the German automaker. Bloomberg Law’s analysis showed
Patent claims don’t always trace an invention’s origins to racing, but some offer hints. A recently published Mercedes application for an “Air-Guiding Device for a Passenger Car,” for example, notes high aerodynamic efficiency is “desirable in order to achieve short lap times on the race track.” And a GM patent issued last year for a racing data system specifically references Formula 1.
Despite the intense competition to win, with hundreds of millions in F1 prize money at stake, teams avoid engaging in patent wars to monopolize their technology during the race season, according to IP attorneys. Auto racing’s international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, doesn’t appear to explicitly prohibit assertion of patents by one team against another, said Knobbe Martens Partner Curtiss Dosier. But its regulations and ability to ban specific technologies discourage patent enforcement among the teams and other official F1 suppliers.
FIA regulations for the 2026 season, though, require oil and engine suppliers to agree not to assert certain patent rights against other suppliers.
Racing can be an exception to the general principle that owning a patent means nobody else can use the invention without going through the owner, said Kelly Burris, an intellectual property attorney who has worked for
“The reality is, in Formula 1 racing, if you come up with an innovation, everyone’s going to be able to use it under the rules,” Burris said.
That doesn’t preclude teams from patenting discoveries from racing and capitalizing on them outside of F1, she said.
“You could license paddle shifters to Mercedes-Benz or Porsche in any way that you can negotiate and get your licensing fees, or block others from using that technology outside of the racing community,” she said.
The speed of innovation in motorsport makes patenting decisions difficult, too, because putting a car with new technology on the track could qualify as public disclosure and make an invention ineligible for patent protection, Osman said. Some companies file patent applications on every innovation that seems promising, he added, even if they eventually drop the invention and application after exploring its potential.
“That overlays on top of this filtration of technology down from racing down to everyday use,” he said.
The pressure-cooker environment created by Formula 1 is what attracts GM and is part of the reason for their bid to join, said O’Blenes, the GM racing propulsion director.
“It’s really about how we can quickly iterate in a motorsports application because you have that pressure to be able to make the green flag,” he said.
Both Cadillac and Chevrolet—another GM brand—participate in the International Motorsports Association sports car series, often referred to as IMSA. O’Blenes pointed to the teams’ development of cellulosic fuels, which was shared with commercial-side fuel and combustion teams for future products
“We’ll look for those same opportunities to make sure that you’re getting the most value out of motorsports from being able to do the technology growth,” O’Blenes said of the Andretti Cadillac F1 bid.
Bid Stalled
GM and Andretti’s bid won the approval of the FIA before Formula 1 denied the effort in January, saying it doubted the team would be competitive or bring value to the series.
The rejection of the American brands has put a congressional spotlight on F1 and its owner,
“We are grateful to the bipartisan members of Congress for their support in challenging this anti-competitive behavior,” Andretti Global said in a statement. “It is our hope that this can be resolved swiftly so that Andretti Cadillac can take its rightfully approved place on the grid in 2026. Our work continues at pace.”
GM and Andretti Global are still in talks with Formula 1 about its bid, has made progress, and their approach hasn’t changed, Cadillac’s Albano said.
“We are still in the process of building a team, a race car, and a power unit,” he said.
Andretti Global has posted over 50 job openings at its new Silverstone, UK, facility since the January rejection and hired outgoing F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds as an engineering consultant.
Licensing, Marketing
The leap to F1 from other series is similar to going from collegiate sports to the professional ranks, said Burris, who has worked on patent applications for Ford, including a resin for metal parts and a platform system. The hunt for every nanosecond advantage in F1 has led to progress in areas like advanced materials that have made their way into mass production in consumer automotives, she said.
But, similar to the lack of litigation between F1 auto manufacturers and suppliers, patent-infringement lawsuits are uncommon in the commercial automotive industry, said Akin Gump partner Ruben Munoz. There are century-long relationships between companies, he said, and it’s “assured mutual destruction if you start suing each other” because manufacturers rely on multiple suppliers.
“You are affecting your client, essentially, if you’re a supplier suing another supplier,” Munoz said. That’s why the industry hasn’t been litigious and prefers licensing deals over going to court, he added.
Though automakers aren’t often asserting their patents in litigation, their portfolios commonly serve as bargaining chips in negotiations for cross-licensing agreements, Munoz said. If manufacturers both need certain technologies developed by competitors, they can cross-license to each other and avoid nasty, drawn out fights.
“It doesn’t leave you naked out there in the market,” Munoz said.
Association with high-level racing, of course, also carries marketing value. Brands lean into their F1 notoriety to market and sell cars to consumers, using innovation as an advertising point. Aston Martin, for example, spotlights how the aerodynamics and electronics features of its Valhalla supercar are “forged in Formula 1.”
“If they can prove that their technology helps them get on the podium or participate and compete in these high-end competitions,” Lee said, “that brings real credibility.”
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