Cables like micro-USB and USB-C are everywhere as well as USB flash drives. Has there been 1 company making and selling them this whole time? Since this technology is so universal (haha), is there even a patent for it? I am just wondering because it’s everywhere, and no one talks about it.
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It’s an industry standard…a whole bunch of companies agreed on what USB means so they can all build USB devices and be (reasonably) confident they’ll all work with each other. There are many many many manufacturers.
There are patented techologies inside it that are licensed out. The standard is maintained by a non-profit called the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). All the interested companies coordinate through them on updating the standard when needed.
“Nobody” talks about it because it’s not that interesting anymore…other than a few holdouts (cough…Apple…cough) almost everyone has converged on USB-A and USB-C.
Edit: updated to clarify that there’s patented technologies inside USB but they’re licensed out by the USB-IF.
USB is a protocol, and the group that is responsible for developing and updating that protocol is a non-profit called USB Implementers Forum.
USB was originally created in 1995 by 7 big tech companies (Compaq, Digital, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel.) They set up USB Implementers Forum to manage the protocol. Basically, if you want to make a USB device, you pay USB Implementers Forum a licensing fee, and that lets you use the term USB and the familiar USB logo on your device.
They use that money to develop further standards like micro-USB and USB-C.
[these guys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Implementers_Forum) – a bunch of companies – create the standards. if you have a cable or device making business (or specifically computer ports), you can pay them $5000 per year to get a certificate that states that yes, your usb stuff is proper usb and works according to the standard. you can produce your cables after that (i believe you can regardless, but with no certification your cables could be a short circuting cables in disguise for all the customers know). they don’t make too much money out of it, but all companies benefit from having a common standard for power & data.
It’s owned by the [USB Implementors Forum](https://www.usb.org/about ) a non-profit consortium of tech companies. there are standards, and essential patents, and liscensing schemes for the essential patents. It’s paid a lot of lawyers for a long time to set up.
USB was created by a group of companies that founded an organization called the “USB Implementers’ Forum” to license the patents for USB stuff. The organization makes a bit of money, but most of that is used to make sure that everyone is sticking to the USB standards, and the rest to advance the standards (for example, to make USB-C a standard).
If you want to make something like a USB cable, you make it, have it tested to make sure that it meets the requirements of the standard, and then buy a license so that you can put the USB logo and use the trademarked USB name on it. If it doesn’t meet the requirements, you can’t use the logos or name.
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