Op-ed: Motive defeats Samsara in IP infringement case

How we got here
For more than a decade, Motive has been on a mission to make our roads safer. We started in 2013 with electronic logs to prevent fatigue-related accidents. In 2017, we began training AI models to detect unsafe driving behavior. In 2021, we launched the Motive AI Dashcam, a product that has prevented more than 170,000 accidents and saved an estimated 1,500 lives.

It was this life-saving technology and an academic study of its efficacy that prompted Samsara’s legal attack. In 2023, we commissioned a study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to independently benchmark the performance of leading AI dash cams. The results were clear: Motive’s AI Dashcam successfully alerted drivers of unsafe behavior up to 4X more than Samsara.

Knowing they were years behind on the AI front and losing major customers to Motive, Samsara attempted to close the gap by using patent litigation as a marketing tool. But the strategy failed. The Judge’s determination confirms what we have always known — Motive did not copy any of Samsara’s supposed inventions, and Motive’s AI technology is fundamentally better than Samsara’s.

The importance of benchmarking
In nearly every field where AI is applied, from medical diagnostics to software engineering, rigorous benchmarking is the norm. Independent evaluations, transparent metrics, and side-by-side comparisons.

But when it comes to AI-powered driver safety technology, Samsara is fighting to prevent it. Samsara’s Terms of Service prevent customers from performing benchmark tests on their products. In stark contrast, Motive’s Terms of Service do not prevent customers from benchmarking our product. We actually encourage it, because we believe it is in the public interest to do so.

As we have in the past, we again invite Samsara to participate in an independent benchmarking study to compare the performance of our AI dash cams. We hope they will finally take us up on that offer. Until then, we will continue to encourage customers to run their own side-by-side trials and see for themselves which product detects more unsafe behavior and prevents more accidents.

The safer road ahead
With this legal attack in the rearview, Motive remains more focused than ever on our mission to improve the safety of our roads.

Thank you to our customers who have placed their trust in Motive. We are grateful for your partnership, and we are more motivated than ever to build a safer and more productive world with you.