Side note. When I was preparing biographies of Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (the inventors of LZ77 and LZ78), I read an interview with Lempel. He was asked why they hadn't patented their algorithms. And he replied like this: we're scientist, our goal is to improve the world, not be rich. His answer surprised me. They clearly knew that the invention is remarkable and would be profitable, but deliberately made it free.
Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#32Brought to you by the company that fires employees that desire to discuss company diversity programs and bans content on its severs that it deems unethical. Totally not evil.
What better slogan if they really planned on being evil. It is not unlike the Cloudflare banning some crazy right wing website recently and publicly claiming it dangerous for a company to become the online arbiter for speech, while the CEO behind the scenes is sending memos how it was his decision and just something he wanted to do etc. I think it a pretty common pattern for the perpetrators to claim officially to ve…
One could almost be forgiven for thinking that "good" and "evil" are simplistic labels that don't match well for what in the end are usually complex situations that rational people might interpret differently.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that relevant to an attempt to patent something that's in the public record?
Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else. Also, until you see the patent app, you don't really know what they are patenting exactly.
Well, the us has moved to first to file.
Sure, a land-grab model, but the frontier was not fair to everybody, and in fact was pretty harmful depending on your politics.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I stand by their right to dismiss employees that make the company look bad. I also stand by their right to remove content that is might mislead people into doing something that would harm themselves ( https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/5vwedb/google... ).
I assume you believe to have the right to decide what offends you or not. In that case, so do I -- and I find your comment offensive. But oh wait, you only agree if it benefits you. Otherwise you will protest, am I right?
That sums up the current political climate pretty well and it doesn't bode well for our kids.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#35Can anyone explain Google's rationale here?
As I understand the US patent system, patent trolls can and do make these sorts of patent filings all the time, and the legitimacy doesn't matter, because their victims can't afford to defend themselves in court.
Isn't it irrational not to file patents like these?
Or is Google planning to use this patent "offensively?"
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else. Also, until you see the patent app, you don't really know what they are patenting exactly.
If there's prior art, what's the difference if a system is first to file or first to invent?
Because prior art is a defensive patent invalidation or prevention technique. If Google doesn't file this patent a troll will, and they will aggressively sue companies (Google included).
Google is doing what it has to to protect itself. Blame the system.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#37Can anyone explain Google's rationale here? As I understand the US patent system, patent trolls can and do make these sorts of patent filings all the time, and the legitimacy doesn't matter, because their victims can't afford to defend themselves in court. Isn't it irrational not to file patents like these? Or is Google planning to use this patent "offensively?"
Google has never used a patent offensively. Hell even Waymo was more about theft than patents. But HN turns rabid in these situations rather than understanding Google has to do this to prevent trolls from doing it.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that relevant to an attempt to patent something that's in the public record?
Well, the us has moved to first to file. It could be they are just protecting it from being patented by someone else. Also, until you see the patent app, you don't really know what they are patenting exactly.
...but ffs! The reason is that Google is encouraging their employees to file patents, just as everybody else, since the patent system in regards to software patents is really just a pissing contest - they need patents to hit each other in the heads with, and it doesn't matter if it's obvious implementations of things that people with a common sense will figure out in 10 minutes.
In this case it took a while to figure out the smart thing, and it took 10 minutes to find an application to patent.
I worked for a company that probably infringed on an existing telecom patent that was more or less equivalent to looking in another sock drawer if you can't find a matching sock, but as it was related to "an apparatus or method" for "locating subscriber registry data" it was apparently novel enough to require a patent.
It took me about 1 minute to come up with the solution as an obvious solution to a simple problem so it was clearly just rubbish.
The patentee had about 2 million other patents, so if someone had actually cared we could potentially have infringed on several more patents and run out of money long before we could win.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I stand by their right to dismiss employees that make the company look bad. I also stand by their right to remove content that is might mislead people into doing something that would harm themselves ( https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/5vwedb/google... ).
I assume you believe to have the right to decide what offends you or not. In that case, so do I -- and I find your comment offensive. But oh wait, you only agree if it benefits you. Otherwise you will protest, am I right?
Yes I do. I also have the right to ignore you when you say stupid shit like this, or call you out on it like I am now. You have exactly the same right.
Re: Poland's oldest university denies Google's right to patent Polish coding concept
#40Can anyone explain Google's rationale here? As I understand the US patent system, patent trolls can and do make these sorts of patent filings all the time, and the legitimacy doesn't matter, because their victims can't afford to defend themselves in court. Isn't it irrational not to file patents like these? Or is Google planning to use this patent "offensively?"
Only Google can explain their rationale, but it's fairly safe to expect that they won't, at least until the whole application process is done.
Your interpretation is one of the plausible scenarios here. It's one in which Google wins, whether they are granted the patent or not. The Polish researcher and his university don't agree, but perhaps they have never been on the receiving end of a patent lawsuit. Yes, I'm very, very jaded.