Seat belts in the cars we often use every day are a necessity when driving if we want to keep ourselves safe as well as the passengers in the cars. However, the use of seat belts is increasingly becoming an optional option for occupants, including the driver, especially on the road with no police. However, how many people wearing seat belts are aware that they are using one of the noblest inventions in human history?
Nowadays, wearing a seat belt is a must in every country when driving on the road, the same thing applied to safety helmets in some countries. Not wearing a seat belt when participating in traffic in a car is both a violation of the law and an act of disrespecting the lives of themselves and those around them.
In terms of intellectual property, not wearing a seat belt while traveling is also somewhat disrespectful to the dedication of Nils Bohlin – Volvo’s genius inventor who invented car seat belts. He volunteered to dedicate his invention completely free of charge to the community for the purpose of protecting human life.
About Nils Bohlin – Volvo engineer
Nils Ivar Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – September 21, 2002) was a Swedish mechanical engineer and inventor who invented the three-point seat belt while working at Volvo.
Born in Härnösand, Sweden, Mr. Bohlin received his degree in mechanical engineering from Härnösand Läroverk in 1939. In 1942, he began working for the aircraft manufacturer Saab as an aircraft designer and helped develop the ejection seat system. In 1958, he joined Volvo as a safety engineer. He is credited with inventing the modern 3-point seat belt, which is now a standard safety feature on all cars.
Bohlin worked on seat belts for about a year, using his skills in developing ejection seats for SAAB. He focuses on keeping drivers safe in a car crash. After testing the 3-point seat belt, he presented his invention to the Volvo company in 1959 and received his first patent (no. 3,043,625). Ten years later, he led Volvo’s Central Research and Development Department in 1969.
In 1974, he was awarded the Ralph Isbrandt Automotive Safety Engineering Award.
In 1985, he retired, left Volvo as a Senior Engineer, and was later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
In 1989, he was inducted into the Health and Safety Hall of Fame. He received a gold medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and Technology in 1995 and in 1999 he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Nils Bohlin died on September 21, 2002, at the age of 82.
The relationship between Bohlin and Volvo is quite good. Volvo once proudly declared that “few people have saved as many lives as Nils Bohlin” throughout the history of great men around the world.
Yes, with his invention of the seat belt, the number of lives he saved increased day by day, and even today, no matter what time of day you are reading this article, there is no doubt the number of lives that Bohlin has saved with his invention still increasing day by day, except for the case when cars completely disappeared from the world.
Patented three-point seat belt
Three-point seat belts have changed the world by preventing injuries in automobile crashes.
According to a research paper from the US Department of Transportation, between 1960 and 2012, seat belts saved 329,715 more lives than all other vehicle technologies combined.
On average, about 15,000 lives are now saved each year by seat belts in the United States alone. In 2017, a study concluded that those who did not wear seat belts had a 47% higher fatality rate.
Numerous other studies have shown that wearing seat belts is only good for the driver as well as the passengers in the car from harm.
However, why do car participants dislike the use of seat belts?
The reasons are numerous but can be summarized into 2 main factors: discomfort and subjectivity.
Subjectivity is because the drivers and passengers do not think they will be likely to get into a traffic accident while on the go, especially for short distances.
Discomfort is that the seat belt is tight, creating a feeling of difficulty in breathing, entanglement in movement.
The subjective factor is hard to change because it depends on the personality of each person, but the discomfort factor has actually improved over the years of research and development since Bohlin first presented his invention to the world.
The president of Volvo before the time of the invention of the 3-point seat belt was Gunnar Engellau. Unfortunately for him, his family suffered casualties due to deficiencies in the 2-point seat belts, which were not standard features in cars at the time.
Realizing this shortcoming, Engellau was determined to improve the safety features of cars with the seat belt mechanism. He ‘poached’ Nils Bohlin from rival company Sabb and then invested in key research into the 3-point seat belt project led by Nils Bohlin.
Until Bohlin’s invention, these old 2-point seat belts were clumsy and made the user especially uncomfortable (much more uncomfortable than they are now).
In addition, those straps are also not very effective as if an accident occurs, the user can still suffer serious injuries to the head, chest, and spine in the event of a collision. Placed in a bad position, the belt can crush the user’s internal organs on impact.
With Bohlin’s new style straps, wearing these straps has become significantly more comfortable. Users can now fasten their seat belts across the chest and waist with just one hand. Progressively improved design has also resulted in a significant reduction in accident and fatality rates, most evidently when in present, seat belts have become a must-have element of design in driving.
Patent for car belt
When Bohlin created the prototype 3-point seat belt and put it into operation, Volvo patented the product with the USPTO.
Under US intellectual property law, Volvo will have exclusive rights to use this invention for 20 years, in return for disclosing detailed belt information to the world.
With the structure of the belt made public, it was possible for small, medium, and large car manufacturers around the world to make new Volvo belts. However, if they actually made and used belts in their models, they would be in violation of intellectual property laws because Volvo’s 3-point belt invention was a registered and patented invention.
According to the law, it takes 20 years for the production and use of belts to be legal.
However, contrary to the speculations of the people and all the rest of the car manufacturers in the world, Volvo did not insist on keeping its rights for 20 years through the licensing of this invention with high fees to other major automakers or keeping the invention to themselves and maintain exclusivity.
In contrast, Volvo gave its 3-point seat belt patent to other major car manufacturers of the time to encourage the mass adoption of seat belts, thereby saving much more lives.
Soon after, with Volvo’s permission, automakers simultaneously put the design of seat belts on their models, saving countless lives from there to now, and to the future.
However, although it has been improved, the fact that wearing a strap is still difficult and uncomfortable for users has made most people using cars not interested in this invention.
It was not until December 1984 that the State of New York in the United States passed a mandatory seat belt law. New York was the first of all 50 states to legislate seat belts.
However, despite knowing it is illegal, in the United States in particular, and the world in general, self-protection still depends greatly on people’s consciousness and their ‘subjectivity’. It is this awareness that has led to many preventable tragic accidents, most famously with the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
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3-point seat belts changed the world by preventing fatal injuries in automobile crashes. However, it should be noted that despite wearing a belt, the driver and passenger can still suffer fatal injuries if they are involved in a serious accident.
This argument has led to some objections about the use of belts in life such as believing in the protection of belts will lead to drivers driving too confidently, and intentionally driving carelessly, leading to an increase in the number of car accidents.
This opinion is not supported by many people.
To this day, Volvo is still recognized as the world leader in car safety. Inventor Bohlin continued to lead new projects at Volvo until the mid-1980s and produced many other useful road safety inventions. The most famous is the SIPS (Side Impact Protection) System.
Not satisfied with just one invention, Volvo and Bohlin continued digging, researching, making unremitting efforts to save people’s lives and bring about noble achievements.
With Volvo’s constant innovation, the company has also indirectly encouraged other famous car manufacturers to invest more in research and development departments, thereby giving birth to useful creations for society.
The registration of protection for intellectual property is a legitimate interest of the creator and the company investing in that project.
However, in special cases, owners should consider temporarily giving up their rights if it helps to protect humanity, society, and the world. This sacrifice has been shown throughout human histories, such as with Volvo’s seat belts or Dr. Jonas Edward Salk’s patent for a measles vaccine.
Now, in the time of Covid-19, it is a small pity that almost no major pharmaceutical company is willing to exempt their IPRs from their vaccines. The CORBEVAX vaccine developed by Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez of the Texas Children’s Hospital Vaccine Development Center at Baylor College of Medicine is an exception.
CORBEVAX is not currently limited by patents and therefore, developing and underdeveloped countries will be able to produce CORBEVAX if they have enough base elements.
Back to Volvo, the complete exemption of IP rights for 3-point seat belts only reduces some of the profits for the giant car company, but in return, Volvo has received a reputation and acknowledgment from the world as a good, friendly car company, for the people, for the society.
For companies of national and international stature, the profit in a certain period of time is only a small number. What matters is the company’s name, reputation, and the relationships built from that sacrifice for the world, the government, and other industry giants.
Compared to the belt, the Covid-19 pandemic is obviously a much larger event and if pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, etc. can understand this, they will surely rise to become one or a few leading pharmaceutical companies not only in the United States, Sweden, the UK but all over the world, instead of just another ‘other vaccine pharmaceutical company’ as it is now.
You can see a list of International IP Firms here.