Ownership under the carmakers' terms
Can an automotive supplier sell its CAD to AI? The OEM terms
A supplier's CAD vault holds three kinds of file: its own background designs, work developed on a carmaker's programme, and drawings the carmaker sent. The carmakers' published terms treat them very differently.
Work done on a programme
Rivian's production terms have the supplier assign foreground intellectual property to Rivian and treat it as work made for hire. Mercedes-Benz's Australian purchasing terms say it will own any developed intellectual property in goods specially developed for it, and Honda UK's that rights in goods made specially for it, and in improvements the supplier makes or suggests, belong to Honda.
Source: What carmakers' purchase terms say about a supplier's designs
Where the supplier keeps its rights
Some terms leave more with the supplier. Jaguar Land Rover's Australian terms let each side keep its background intellectual property; Stellantis's South American exhibit asks only for a free, non-exclusive licence to inventions that cannot be used apart from its technical information; Mercedes-Benz do Brasil defers developed components to the separate contract.
Source: Stellantis, South America Exhibit A to the Global General Terms
Drawings and tools the carmaker supplied
Every carmaker document on our board that mentions them keeps them. Rivian's terms make tooling, designs and drawings it furnished or paid for its own property; Renault's loan-for-use conditions call its specific tools its physical property; Volvo Group asks for typebound tooling and drawings back on request.
Source: Rivian, General Terms and Conditions of Production Purchase
What that leaves to license
What tends to remain is the supplier's own background work: designs it developed before a programme or independently of one, and its own test methods. Mercor's hardware listing asks for exactly that, designs the company owns and not customer IP.