What you are looking for is basically what happened with 3-point safety belts:
"The three point belt was developed by Nils Bohlin who had earlier also worked on ejection seats at Saab.[15] Volvo then made the new seat belt design patent open in the interest of safety and made it available to other car manufacturers for free.[16][17]"
"The three point belt was developed by Nils Bohlin who had earlier also worked on ejection seats at Saab.[15] Volvo then made the new seat belt design patent open in the interest of safety and made it available to other car manufacturers for free.[16][17]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#Three-point