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Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

arstechnica.com

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Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#171

Post by Promarged »

dxhdr wrote: post #83

Reading through the linked 2014 email exchange is somewhat amusing. I love how the first two responses to his ideas are uninformed cynicism regarding increased hardware memory costs. Then things start to make a bit more sense with another engineer interested in coders actually digging in and verifying / debugging his work. And then of course it takes a dark turn at the end with Google applying to patent his ideas whi…

It reminds me of one person here on HN describing their interaction with Google w.r.t. their startup's novel idea.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#172

Post by jeffreyrogers »

jjeaff wrote: post #158
wb36 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't patent an idea, only an implementation of an idea.

While that may technically he the case, the USPTO has allowed the "application" of ideas to be so broad as to effectively be just a patent on ideas. There are a million different ways you could implement a "one click checkout" yet the USPTO granted a "one click checkout" patent to Amazon. And countless similar parents exist today. (podcast patent, online shopping cart patent, a patent on making 'toast' and on and on)

Having a patent doesn't mean the patent is valid. I think something like 50% of patents are declared invalid during litigation. (This obviously doesn't mean 50% of patents are invalid, since you probably don't go to trial unless you think you have a reasonable chance of winning).

Plus, a lot of those software patents are not valid[0]. The validity of software patents in general and what qualifies as patentable with regards to software is still an open question.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#173

Post by jeffreyrogers »

dick_sucker2 wrote: post #170
lightedman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, drug patents list the molecular structure, chemical formula, and specific method which they utilize to arrive at the finished product.

If a drug patent hasn't passed phase 3 trials isn't it just an idea?

You don't have to have a physically working thing to patent it. You can patent something that's just an "idea" as long as the idea is physically realizable. Ideally the patent examiner knows enough about the field that patent is in to decide whether something is likely to work in practice or whether it is just some bogus invention that has no chance of working.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#174

Post by jonathanyc »

rhizome wrote: post #111
jonathanyc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s what they meant. See “only.”

Do you mean the "only" that's followed by "not by copyright?"

Yes, an almost universal trait of human languages is that they include redundancies for error correction. Reread the post the OP is replying to and then read the OP’s comment.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#175

Post by bch »

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

Isn’t this exactly just the job of licensing? With favourable licensing, it seems to me (IANAL) the patenting is just defence for us all, keeping a less-sharing third party from patenting and locking-down a process or implementation.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#176

Post by jeffreyrogers »

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

You can just publish your invention and how to make it if you want it to be part of the prior art. Then, in theory, the patent examiners should find it when examining patents. Of course, making sure they actually find the relevant prior art is part of the problem.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#177

Post by bdowling »

bch wrote: post #175
hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

Isn’t this exactly just the job of licensing? With favourable licensing, it seems to me (IANAL) the patenting is just defence for us all, keeping a less-sharing third party from patenting and locking-down a process or implementation.

No. Patents grant a monopoly for a limited time and there is no compulsory licensing regime for patents. Many patent-owners do license their inventions, but others don't.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#178

Post by PebblesRox »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #107
jonathanyc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s what they meant. See “only.”

Can you explain further, that doesn't make sense.

I think the idea is that the blueprint’s copywrite doesn’t give sufficient protection to keep someone from using the invention (since they can reverse-engineer based on the actual machine). Only a patent can actually protect in this case.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#179

Post by cma »

trhway wrote: post #148

>A Google spokesperson told Ars that Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers. and this is how you do it, children. You patent a straightforward implementation and application ("additional work by engineers") of the idea, and thus you effectively prevent…

They really haven't. If you read the claims, they are covering swapping out a Huffman entropy encoder with Duda's. They narrowed it to only apply to their codecs, but they shouldn't be able to cover that usage of it at all. The whole point is to swap out for other entropy encoders. It is a 100% obvious usage of a new entropy encoder. It is an almost completely modular piece of a compression system.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#180

Post by bdowling »

dick_sucker2 wrote: post #170
lightedman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, drug patents list the molecular structure, chemical formula, and specific method which they utilize to arrive at the finished product.

If a drug patent hasn't passed phase 3 trials isn't it just an idea?

Clinical trials and regulatory approval are independent of the patent process. This should make sense because a patent is a right to exclude others, not a right to do something. For example, just because you have a patent on a new drug doesn't mean you can actually sell it to patients.
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