Actually car companies are starting to patent vehicle control interfaces, (for e.g. Teslas patents for Sunroof control interface [1], Audio Control interface [2], etc)<p>If the current craze of IP-as-offensive-weapon were the trend back in the days where basic vehicular controls were being defined, I think we would have seen some similar behavior from car companies - (and in my opinion, their case would be more defensible than Oracle&#x27;s software API copyright protection).<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freshpatents.com&#x2F;-dt20140403ptan20140095029.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freshpatents.com&#x2F;-dt20140403ptan20140095029.php</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freshpatents.com&#x2F;-dt20140403ptan20140096003.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freshpatents.com&#x2F;-dt20140403ptan20140096003.php</a><p>Edit: typo